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Sociocultural and Historical Contexts

of African American English
Varieties of English Around the World

General Editor
Edgar W. Schneider
Department of English & American Studies
University of Regensburg
Universitätsstraße 31
D-93053 REGENSBURG
Germany
edgar.schneider@sprachlit.uni-regensburg.de

Editorial Assistants
Alexander Kautzsch, Andreas Hiltscher, Magnus Huber (Regensburg)

Editorial Board
Michael Aceto (Puerto Rico); Laurie Bauer (Wellington)
J.K. Chambers (Toronto); Jenny Cheshire (London)
Manfred Görlach (Cologne); Barbara Horvath (Sydney)
Jeffrey Kallen (Dublin); Thiru Kandiah (Colombo)
Vivian de Klerk (Grahamstown, South Africa)
William A. Kretzschmar, Jr. (Athens, GA)
Caroline Macafee (Aberdeen); Michael Montgomery (Columbia, SC)
Peter Mühlhäusler (Adelaide); Peter L. Patrick (Colchester)

General Series

Volume 27
Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American English
Edited by Sonja L. Lanehart
Sociocultural and Historical Contexts
of African American English

Edited by

Sonja L. Lanehart
University of Georgia

John Benjamins Publishing Company

Amsterdam/Philadelphia
 TMThe paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
8

of American National Standard for Information Sciences – Permanence

of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American English / edited by Sonja L.

Lanehart.
p. cm. (Varieties of English Around the World, issn 0172–7362 ; v. g27)
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
1. African Americans--Languages. 2. English language--Social aspects--United States. 3.
English language--Variation--United States. 4. Black English. 5. Americanisms. I. Lanehart,
Sonja L. II. Series.

PE3102.N44 S632001
427’.973’08996073--dc21 2001025603
isbn 90 272 4885 0 (Eur.) / 1 58811 045 1 (US) (Hb; alk. paper)
isbn 90 272 4886 9 (Eur.) / 1 58811 046 X (US) (Pb; alk. paper)
© 2001 – John Benjamins B.V.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any
other means, without written permission from the publisher.
John Benjamins Publishing Co. · P.O.Box 36224 · 1020 me Amsterdam · The Netherlands
John Benjamins North America · P.O.Box 27519 · Philadelphia pa 19118-0519 · usa
 Contents

Acknowledgements vii
Foreword ix
About the Contributors xii

Part 1: Introduction
1. State of the art in African American English research:
Multi-disciplinary perspectives and directions 1
Sonja L. Lanehart
2. What is African American English? 21
Salikoko S. Mufwene

Part 2: African American English and its relationship to other

varieties of English
3. The relationship between African American Vernacular English
and White Vernaculars in the American South: A sociocultural
history and some phonological evidence 53
Guy Bailey
4. Co-existing grammars: The relationship between the evolution
of African American and Southern White Vernacular English
in the South 93
Patricia Cukor-Avila
5. The voice of the ancestors: New evidence on 19th-century
precursors to 20th-century African American English 129
David Sutcliffe

Part 3: Language Use in the African American Community

6. Something to Shout about: African American Vernacular English
as a linguistic and cultural treasure 169
Mary B. Zeigler
vi Contents

7. “Nuthin’ But a G Thang’’: Grammar and language ideology in

Hip Hop identity 187
Marcyliena Morgan
8. African American women: Talking that talk 211
Denise Troutman
9. Directness in the use of African American English 239
Arthur K. Spears

Part 4: African American English and Education

10. The role of family, community, and school in children’s
acquisition and maintenance of African American English 261
Toya A. Wyatt
11. Pay Leon, Pay Leon, Pay Leon, Paleontologist: Using call-and-
response to facilitate language mastery and literacy acquisition
among African American Students 281
Michèle Foster
12. Applying our knowledge of African American English to
the problem of raising reading levels in inner-city schools 299
William Labov
13. Applying linguistic knowledge of African American English to
help students learn and teachers teach 319
John Baugh

Part 5: Conclusion
14. Reconsidering the sociolinguistic agenda for African American
English: The next generation of research and application 331
Walt Wolfram

Index 363
 Acknowledgements

The conference on “Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American

Vernacular English’’ would not have been possible without the financial sup-
port of several people and offices at the University of Georgia. I would like to
thank: The Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs for the opportu-
nity it provides for such a conference to take place with its annual funding of
conferences through its State of the Art Conference Grant; Bette Jean Craige,
Director of the Center for Humanities and Arts, for her financial support
through special funds that allowed all University of Georgia faculty, students,
and staff to attend the conference free of charge as well as for funds from the
Center for Humanities and Arts Conference, Performance, and Exhibition
Grant; Ron Miller, the Director of the Institute for African American Studies,
for graciously offering to support the conference; Jenny Penny Oliver, Assistant
to the Dean in the College of Education, for her enduring support and her
success in persuading Dean Russ Yeany to help fund the conference; and Anne
Williams, Head of the Department of English, for her financial commitment
to the conference. I would also like to thank Hugh Ruppersburg, Associate
Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, for supporting my State of the Art
Conference Grant application and giving it a chance to happen.
Special thanks to my husband, Paul, for giving me the idea to undertake
such an effort and to Salikoko Mufwene and Michèle Foster for being the first
ones to sit down with me over dinner one night in Chicago to discuss planning
for the conference and to be the first ones to commit to participating in it.
Special thanks to John Baugh and Walt Wolfram for providing advice and
guidance and going beyond the call of duty on more than one occasion. Special
thanks to Dorish Kadish for all her advice as one who had been in my shoes the
year before and gave me all the inside information I needed to negotiate and
arrange all the details that go into organizing such a conference. Also, I would
like to thank Emily Williams, my Linguistics Program research assistant Fall
1999, for all her hard work.
Sincere thanks to all the conference presenters for their commitment to
language use in the African American community. They did a wonderful job.
viii Acknowledgements

I would also like to thank all those people who came to the conference from
around the world to hear and share ideas about language use in the African
American community. I know the conference presenters benefited from their
comments as did I.
Finally, I would like to thank the University of Georgia community for
their participation and support, especially those teachers who felt the confer-
ence was important enough to bring their classes to participate.
 Foreword

Over a quarter of a century ago, late writer Toni Cade Bambara, wrote:
Most folks finally agree that yes, Virginia, there is a Black English. But at that point
agreement ends and folks splinter into fifty leven directions, most shouting that it’s
a low life ignorant shameful thing that must be wiped out. Some arguin in terrible
tones of reasonableness that it’s ok for literature classes, learn a little Dunbar with
your Shakespeare, but it holds us back from respectability and acceptance. “On
the Issue of Black English’’, Confrontation 1.3 (1974)

To be sure, there are folks who continue these lines of debate today even as
we usher in a new millennium. However, as Bambara also taught, “there’s
another crew that don’t say nuthin at all, just steady workin, investigatin the
grammar, roots, forms, styles of Black English and tryin to design materials in
its spirit so that Bloods can develop multi-media competency and the capacity
to make things happen . . . .’’ Therein lies the major contribution of this
volume: it investigates African American Language in all its multifaceted
complexity and applies this research so that U.S. slave descendants can “make
things happen’’.
A word about the use of “African American Language’’. Yes, I do think that
the speech of U.S. slave descendants is a language. Of course, as many scholars
have pointed out, the language-dialect distinction cannot be resolved on strictly
narrow linguistic grounds. Linguist Wayne O’Neil put it this way:
. . . languages are defined politically, not scientifically. For example, Swedish and
Norwegian, though mutually intelligible, are counted as different languages (in
contradiction with the common-sense test) simply because a political boundary
divides Sweden from Norway, while Cantonese, Fujianese, Mandarin, and so on,
though not mutually intelligible, are considered to be dialects of Chinese because
they are historically related, typologically alike, and located within the national
boundary of the People’s Republic of China . . . Thus, a way of speaking becomes
a language by declaration . . . a way of speaking is a language if you say it is. “If
Ebonics Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?’’ (1998)

Further, “African American Language’’ is a broad term, used to refer not only
to the language of the U.S. Black community, but also to Gullah, to Haitian
x Foreword

Creole, to Jamaican Creole, and to other “Black languages’’ (Creoles) of the

Americas.
Editor Sonja Lanehart was clearly on a mission when she undertook the
task of planning a state of the art conference focusing on the communication
system of Africans in America — also known as Ebonics, Black Talk, African
American Vernacular English, Black English, African American Language,
Spoken Soul, and African American English, the term used in this volume. It
was an ambitious goal, to assemble major researchers of African American
English at the University of Georgia for two days. (Illness kept me from partici-
pating.) The fact that Lanehart pulled it off is tantamount to a coup. And judg-
ing from the quality of the conference papers assembled here, the scholars did
not disappoint.
The presence — and dominance — of outstanding African American lin-
guists in the collection assembled here attests to the emergence of a critical
mass of Black linguists that did not exist back in the day when Bambara was
teaching composition to Black college students and bemoaning the “adrena-
lized attitudes that surround the issue of Black English. . .and cause so many
to squander precious energy jumpin up and down’’. Due, in part, to the solid
work of such scholars who are able to pose questions as cultural insiders, at
one and the same time participants and scientific observers, many issues that
were raised but went unexplored back in the l970s are now receiving in-depth
analyses — e.g., the relationship between enslavement practices and the lan-
guage of the enslaved; capitalizing on the linguistic traditions of the “root
culture’’ in literacy and schooling; linguistic-cultural norms of reprimand;
gender, age and popular culture manifested in African American Language; the
role and perspective of the Black community relative to language issues. At the
same time, old questions and controversies are benefiting from new data and
the reinterpretation of existing data bases — e.g., the origin and historical
roots of African American English. These issues and others are investigated in
this volume of new, exciting, cutting edge work by some of the top scholars
in the field.
Toni Morrison had this to say about our language:

It’s the thing Black people love so much — the saying of words, holding them on
the tongue, experimenting with them, playing with them. It’s a love, a passion . . .
The worst of all possible things that could happen would be to lose that language.
There are certain things I cannot say without recourse to my language. From The
New Republic (1981)
 Foreword xi

Most importantly, then, these insightful, creative essays remind us that for
those who live and work in the Black community, the study of African Ameri-
can Language is not just an academic exercise, it is our life. Written on the
eve of the new millennium, Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African
American English is a critical, one-of-a-kind volume for teachers, students,
and scholars. Props to Lanehart for her vision.
Geneva Smitherman, Ph.D.
University Distinguished Professor of English
Michigan State University
March, 2000
 About the contributors

Guy Bailey is Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University
of Texas at San Antonio. His research focuses on Southern American and
African American Vernacular English, with particular emphasis on the relation-
ships between these two varieties and on their historical development. Relevant
publications include The Emergence of Black English (co-edited, 1991) and many
articles in Language in Society and American Speech. Also, he is currently
working on a book with Patricia Cukor-Avila for Cambridge University Press
entitled The Development of African American English since 1850: The Evolution
of a Grammar.
John Baugh is Professor of Education and Linguistics at Stanford University,
where he has been since 1990. He received his Ph.D. from the University of
Pennsylvania in 1979. He has also held appointments at the University of Texas
at Austin and Swarthmore College in linguistics, anthropology, and sociology.
His major research interests have been in sociolinguistics, applied linguistics,
and educational linguistics, with particular attention to studies of minority
groups. He has served as Vice Chair of the Board at the Center for Applied
Linguistics, as President of the American Dialect Society, and as a member of
the National Advisory Committee to NSF in the Social, Behavioral, and Eco-
nomic Sciences. He is author of Black Street Speech: Its History, Structure, and
Survival (1983), Out of the Mouths of Slaves: African American Language and
Educational Malpractice (1999), and Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic Pride and Racial
Prejudice (2000) as well as co-editor of Language in Use: Readings in Socio-
linguistics (1984), Towards a Social Science of Language (1996), and African
American English: Structure, History and Use (1998).
Patricia Cukor-Avila is Assistant Professor of Linguistics in the Department of
English at the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas. Her work centers
on the study of grammatical variation and change in rural Southern dialects,
specifically African American Vernacular English. Her longitudinal study of a
rural Texas community has provided much of the data for presentations and
articles concerning approaches to sociolinguistic fieldwork as well as docu-
menting innovations in African American Vernacular English. She is co-editor
 About the contributors xiii

of The Emergence of Black English: Text and Commentary (1995) as well as au-
thor of several articles and book chapters. Also, she is currently working on a
book with Guy Bailey for Cambridge University Press entitled The Development
of African American English since 1850: The Evolution of a Grammar.
Michele Foster is Professor of Education in the Center for Educational Studies
at Claremont Graduate University (formerly The Claremont Graduate School).
She is the recipient of postdoctoral fellowships from the National Academy of
Education and the University of North Carolina. Her research has been funded
by the Spencer Foundation, The Carnegie Corporation, and the Office of Edu-
cational Research and Improvement. Broadly focused on the social, cultural,
and linguistic contexts of learning for African Americans, her scholarship in-
cludes studies of teachers, research on teacher professional development and
change, and sociolinguistic and ethnography of communication research in
classrooms. She is editor or co-editor of three books and author of Black Teach-
ers on Teaching. Her articles have appeared in journals such as Language in
Society, Linguistics and Education, and Anthropology of Education Quarterly.
William Labov is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania
where he also directs the Linguistics Laboratory. He is a member of the Na-
tional Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. He
has also been a Guggenheim Fellow and was recently awarded the Leonard
Bloomfield Linguistic Society of America award for his publication, Principles
of Linguistic Change, Vol. 1 (1994). His research interests include language
change and variation, linguistic geography, American dialects, and African
American Vernacular English. He is the Principle Investigator for The Phono-
logical Atlas of North America. Among his many publications are The Study of
Non-Standard English (1969), Language in the Inner City (1972), Therapeutic
Discourse (with David Fanshel [1976]), Sociolinguistic Patterns (1972), and Prin-
ciples of Linguistic Change, Vol. 2 (2001).
Sonja L. Lanehart is Assistant Professor of English and Linguistics at the Uni-
versity of Georgia. She holds a B.A. in English from the University of Texas at
Austin and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor
in English. She is the recipient of a Mellon Fellowship from the Woodrow
Wilson Foundation and a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship from the
National Academy of Sciences. Her research interests are in language and liter-
acy use in the African American community, language and identity (especially
with respect to motivation, ethnicity, self-efficacy, and goals), sociolinguistics,
language and literacy ideologies, educational issues and applications for African
xiv About the contributors

Americans who use AAE, language attitudes and beliefs, and language discrimi-
nation. She is the author of Sista, Speak: Black Women Kinfolk Talk about
Language and Literacy (expected 2002).
Marcyliena Morgan is Visiting Associate Professor of Education at Harvard
University and Associate Professor of Anthropology at UCLA. Her research has
focused on anthropological linguistics, sociolinguistics, educational linguistics,
ethnography of speaking, pidgin and creole linguistics, language and gender,
and language and identity. Her publications include “Say It Loud’’: Language,
Discourse and Verbal Genres in African American Culture (2001); Language and
the Social Construction of Identity in Creole Situations (edited, 1994); “The
Africanness of Counterlanguage Among Afro-Americans’’ (1993); “Indirectness
and Interpretation in African American Women’s Discourse’’ (1991); and other
articles and chapters on African American culture and language, language
ideology, women’s speech, discourse and interaction among Caribbean women
in London and Jamaica, urban youth language and interaction, and language
education planning and policy. She is currently completing a book on Hip Hop
language and the construction of social identity.
Salikoko S. Mufwene is Professor and Chair of Linguistics at the University of
Chicago. His relevant research areas include the morphosyntax of Atlantic
English Creoles, especially Gullah, and of AAE as well as the development of
creole languages. He has completed a book titled The Ecology of Language Evo-
lution (Cambridge University Press). He has edited Africanisms in Afro-Ameri-
can Language Varieties (1993) and co-edited African-American English: Struc-
ture, History, and Use (1998) for Routledge. Professor Mufwene has been a
Fulbright Fellow and Sara Moss Fellow and has held several NEH and NSF
grants. He has published scores of articles in leading linguistics journals such
as American Speech, Diachronica, and the Journal of Pidgin and Creole Lan-
guages. In addition, he has published numerous book chapters. He is currently
the editor of a new book series, Approaches to Language Contact, with Cam-
bridge University Press.
Geneva Smitherman is a University Distinguished Professor of English and
Director of the African American Language and Literacy Program at Michigan
State University. She is also the director of “My Brother’s Keeper’’, a middle
school mentoring program. She received her Ph.D. in English from the Univer-
sity of Michigan. She is an internationally recognized authority on African
American Language who has been at the forefront of the struggle for Black
language rights for more than 20 years. From 1977 to 1979, she was the chief
 About the contributors xv

advocate and expert witness for the children in King (the “Black English’’
federal court case). She is the author of 12 books and more than 100 articles
and papers on the language, culture, and education of African Americans, most
notably the classic work, Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America
(1977, revised 1986), Black Talk: Words and Phrases From the Hood to the Amen
Corner (1994, revised 1999), and, recently, Talkin That Talk: Language, Culture
and Education in African America (2000). Her current research focuses on
language planning and policy in South Africa.
Arthur K. Spears is Professor of Anthropology and former department chair
at The City College of The City University of New York (CUNY) and Professor
of Linguistics and Anthropology at the Graduate Center, CUNY. His research
is in the areas of African American English; pidgin and creole languages, focus-
ing on Haitian and other French-lexifier creoles; and language, race, and ideol-
ogy. Among his recent publications are “African-American Language Use:
Ideology and So-Called Obscenity’’ in African American English (1998) and “Le
Système Aspecto-Temporal du Ste-Lucien Comparé à Ceux de l’Haïtien, du
Guadeloupéen et du Martiniquais’’, Etudes Créoles (2000). He is the editor of
Race and Ideology: Language, Symbolism, and Popular Culture (1999) and
co-editor of The Structure and Status of Pidgins and Creoles (1997). He is
the founder and first editor of Transforming Anthropology, the journal of the
Association of Black Anthropologists.
David Sutcliffe is Assistant Professor of Creativity, Translation, and Linguistics
at Barcelona’s Universitat Pompeu Fabra. He received his Ph.D. in Linguistics
from Reading University in 1998 on the theme, “African American Vernacular
English: Origins and Issues’’. He has had a life-long involvement with communi-
cation as well as a passion for linguistics, and an identification with
Afro-American and Afro-Caribbean cultures. In 1967 he began teaching in a
multi-ethnic school in Bedford, UK, and soon became involved in the educa-
tional situation faced by Jamaican and other Afro-Caribbean students in British
schools. This in turn led to a series of studies on the then emerging British
Jamaican variety. These included a research-based Master’s degree, “The
language of first and second generation West Indian children in Bedfordshire’’
(University of Leicester, 1978), leading to the publication of British Black English
(1982) and culminating in 1984 in a research project co-directed with Viv
Edwards on “Language use in a British Black Community’’. Since then he has
shifted his interest to United States African American English and its connection
with the other Afro-American languages in the Diaspora. Recently, he has em-
xvi About the contributors

barked on the study of earlier stages of African American English and related but
more creole-like varieties in the United States. He is also working on the possibly
tonal or tonally-derived aspects of African American English intonation.
Denise Troutman is Associate Professor of American Thought and Language
and Linguistics at Michigan State University. She teaches writing to first-year
students and linguistics to undergraduate and graduate students. Holding
appointments in two departments, Denise publishes work on both writing
and linguistics, with an emphasis in discourse analysis. Currently, she is devel-
oping theoretical explanations of African American women’s language. Some
of her publications include “Tongue and Sword: Which is Master’’? in African
American Women Speak Out on Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas (1995), “Culturally
Toned Diminutives within the Speech Community of African American
Women’’ in Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies (1996), “Black
Women’s Language’’ (co-authored) in Reader’s Companion to U. S. Women’s
History (1998), “Whose Voice is it Anyway? Marked Features in the Writing of
Black English Speakers’’ in Writing in Multicultural Settings (1997), “Discourse,
Ethnicity, Culture and Racism’’ (co-authored) in Discourse Studies: A Multi-
disciplinary Introduction (1997), “Dialects of Power: Ebonics Personified’’ in
Teaching Grammar in Context: Lessons to Share (1998), ‘‘The Power of Dialects’’
in Lessons to Share on Teaching Grammar in Context (1998), and ‘‘Breaking
Mythical Bonds: African American Women’s Language’’ in The Workings of
Language: From Prescriptions to Perspectives (1999). Forthcoming works include
“We Be Strong Women’’, to appear in Communication and African American
Women: Studies of Rhetoric and Everyday Talk, “And Ain’t I a Woman: African
American Women and Language’’, to appear in Discourse and Society.
Walt Wolfram is the William C. Friday Distinguished Professor at North Caro-
lina State University, where he also directs the North Carolina Language and
Life Project. He has pioneered research on social and ethnic dialects since the
1960s, including one of the earliest descriptions of African American English,
The Sociolinguistic Description of Detroit Negro Speech (Center for Applied Lin-
guistics, 1969). His current research involves historically isolated communities
of African Americans in coastal North Carolina. He is also vitally concerned
with the application of sociolinguistic information to social and educational
problems and the dissemination of knowledge about dialects to the public.
In this connection, he has been involved in the production of several TV
documentaries on dialect diversity and the development of dialect awareness
curricula for the schools. His publications include A Sociolinguistic Description
 About the contributors xvii

of Detroit Negro Speech (1969), Appalachian Speech (co-author, 1976), American

English: Dialects and Variation (co-author, 1998), Dialects in Schools and Com-
munities (co-edited, 1999), and many other articles and book chapters.
Toya A. Wyatt is Associate Professor of Speech Communication at California
State University, Fullerton where she teaches in the Communication Disorders
program. Dr. Wyatt holds a B.S. and M.A. in Speech-Language Pathology from
Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in Speech-Language Pathology from the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Dr. Wyatt’s primary areas of teaching and
research include child language development, disorders, and assessment with a
special emphasis on the language development and assessment of African-Amer-
ican and bilingual children. Dr. Wyatt has presented numerous workshops and
conference papers on these topics to professional and parent organizations
throughout the country. She is the author of several publications focusing on
multicultural child language development and assessment concerns. She cur-
rently serves as an associate editor for Language, Speech and Hearing Services in
the Schools and as an editorial consultant to several other professional and re-
search journals. She is the former project director of a three-year $210,000 fed-
eral training grant from the U.S. Department of Education designed to enhance
the delivery of services to children and families from diverse cultural and lan-
guage backgrounds. She also serves as consultant to a number of other federally
funded grant projects (e.g., National Institutes of Health), the Oakland Unified
School District, and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science Head
Start programs. In addition, Dr. Wyatt has served as a member of several boards
and task force committees of the American Speech-Language Hearing Associa-
tion and California Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
Mary B. Zeigler is Associate Professor of English at Georgia State University.
Her research and teaching focus on American English as cultural expression
and reflection in oral and written texts. Recent lectures include “Linguistic
Efficacy: Discourse and Difference in the Classroom’’ (April 1997) and “Hyper-
corrections in Ebonic Discourse: Convergence/Divergence of Reduplicated -ed’’
(May 1997). Recent publications include her editorship of a special issue of
Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies (Fall 1996), two essays in that
journal, “Postcolonial Contexts of African American Vernacular English’’, “The
Invisible Language: African American English In Language Arts and Composi-
tion’’, and an article in Homefront entitled “Ebonics: The Real Story Behind the
Controversy’’ (Winter 1997). Dr. Zeigler earned degrees from South Carolina
State University, Atlanta University, and the University of Georgia.
 Chapter 1

State of the art in African American English

research: Multidisciplinary perspectives and
directions

Sonja L. Lanehart
University of Georgia

. Introduction

The papers for this book were presented at a State of the Art Conference at the
University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, 29–30 September 1998. I wanted to
gather together people who do research in language use in the African Ameri-
can community, regardless of their discipline, to engage particular questions I
felt needed to be addressed in one place. The most fundamental question for
me was one I get asked most often about this topic: What is African American
English? I also had several other questions which stemmed from my belief that
all languages have a history and sociocultural context that delineates the lan-
guage and makes it what it is at a particular point in time. Likewise, I am quite
sensitive to the fact that languages are used by people — individuals and groups
— and are not divorced from the people that use the languages. Hence, we
cannot talk about a language without considering and trying to understand the
people in and of their sociocultural and historical contexts. In other words, the
language and the people are inextricably linked — especially when it comes to
talking about language use in the African American community — as evidenced
in the work of Geneva Smitherman (see, for example, Smitherman 2000) and
attested by Toni Morrison during an interview in response to the question,
“What do you think is distinctive about your fiction? What makes it good?’’
The language, only the language. The language must be careful and must appear
effortless. It must not sweat. It must suggest and be provocative at the same time.
It is the thing that black people love so much — the saying of words, holding them
on the tongue, experimenting with them, playing with them. It’s a love, a passion.
Its function is like a preacher’s: to make you stand up out of your seat, make you
lose yourself and hear yourself. The worst of all possible things that could happen
 Sonja L. Lanehart

would be to lose that language. There are certain things I cannot say without
recourse to my language. It’s terrible to think that a child with five different pres-
ent tenses comes to school to be faced with those books that are less than his own
language. And then to be told things about his language, which is him, that are
sometimes permanently damaging (LeClair 1981: 27).

Although Morrison is answering in response to her fiction writing, she is doing

so in a way that shows the significance of a language to a people who celebrate
language and its possibilities. It also points to the vulnerability of the people and
the language because of this type of oneness. As Baugh (this volume) illustrates,
there really is little if anything that practically distinguishes racial prejudice and
linguistic prejudice — especially for those who speak African American English
— because, again, the two are inextricably linked in our society. This is sup-
ported all the more by Mufwene (this volume) if, as with other languages, we
define African American English as the language spoken by African Americans.
In addition to asking what African American English is, I also asked:

1. What do other languages of the African Diaspora in the Americas have to

do with African American English? (See Sutcliffe this volume.)
2. What is the relationship between African American English and American
English dialects? (See Bailey this volume and Cukor-Avila this volume.)
3. What is the relationship between Hip Hop and African American English?
(See Morgan this volume.)
4. What is the relationship between gender and African American English?
(See Troutman this volume.)
5. What is the language of African American English in and to the African
American community? (See Morgan this volume, Mufwene this volume,
Spears this volume, Troutman this volume, and Zeigler this volume.)
6. What is the role of African American English in schools and education?
(See Baugh this volume, Foster this volume, Labov, this volume, and Spears
this volume.)
7. What are the dynamics of family, school, and/or community in the acquisi-
tion and maintenance of African American English? (See Baugh this vol-
ume, Morgan this volume, and Wyatt this volume.)
8. What makes African American English a language and cultural treasure?
(See Morgan this volume, Spears this volume, and Zeigler this volume.)
9. What makes the study of African American English important? What’s the
big(ger) picture? (See Mufwene this volume and Wolfram this volume.)

All the questions were not resolved nor were they expected to be, but I think
 State of the art in AAE Research 

we have a good beginning that may mean the need for a future conference to
assess our progress in addressing the above questions and others that emerge.
Though these questions may have been asked or engaged before, there had
not been a central location for addressing them. Of course, some questions have
multiple answers, in part, given various perspectives of researchers and the ef-
fects such perspectives have in how we analyze and interpret data (see Sutcliffe
this volume). For example, the question of definition for African American Eng-
lish is so contentious that I am sure I could have gotten 10 different responses
from 10 different people. Also, most of the issues addressed in the questions
don’t have “answers’’ per se–some just seem to have more questions. Also, the
issues surrounding some of the questions are evolving and require multiple or
dynamic approaches for engagement because they have changed and will con-
tinue to change just as the people who speak the language have and do change.
My goals for the conference (and now this book) were threefold. First,
I wanted to enable scholars of the humanities, speech communications, and
education to gain a broader, more interdisciplinary understanding of language
use in the African American community which would include the linguistic
and historical aspects of African American English as well as the ever more
needed educational, sociocultural, and ecological aspects of African American
English. Second, I wanted to enable scholars of language variation in American
English and scholars in language variation in the African Diaspora to look at
African American English more globally in order to understand the dynamic
and still uncertain relationship between African American English and other
varieties of language in the Americas, Africa, and elsewhere (most notably be-
cause of the historical, social, and ecological conditions of slavery), including
England (most notably because of the historical, social, political, and ecological
conditions of colonialism and imperialism). Third, I wanted to enable members
of the academic community and the general public to understand the impor-
tance of language use in not only the African American community but also
other communities of language variation based on demographic and historical
differences (e.g., Southern American English and Jamaican Creole). I can only
hope those goals were met to at least some extent. You can be the judge. How-
ever, as Wolfram (this volume) implies, we may think we know a lot about
African American English, but there is so much we really do not know (that is
pretty scary since, as noted in Wolfram’s chapter in this volume, more research
has been done in African American English than any other language variety).
We cannot become arrogant about or complacent in our so-called knowledge
of African American English.
 Sonja L. Lanehart

While learning how to organize and host a conference by trial and error,
I was ever more convinced about the inevitable continuance of the many per-
spectives surrounding the issue of African American English — including what
to call it and the ideological issues surrounding the name and the nature of the
language. The conference further strengthened my belief that sociocultural and
historical contexts are fundamental aspects of the nature and continued exis-
tence of African American English as well as, for example, identity, self-
efficacy, resilience, motivation, goals, and possible selves (Lanehart 1996).
Those many inter-related aspects can provide a more holistic view of language
and why, in the case of African American English, speakers continue to speak
it despite antagonistic pressures socially, economically, educationally, and oth-
erwise. Language permeates the very essence of our being and is one way we
can allow others to see us as we are and as we want to be seen.
Finally, while pondering the papers presented at the conference, I was able
to synthesize five calls for more research in not only African American English
but sociolinguistics in general that are not necessarily all new calls for research,
but are calls worth stating and doing for the new millennium. Those five calls
iterated the need for more research that:

1. includes age or generation as a primary variable,

2. includes sociohistorical data,
3. incorporates sociocultural context,
4. incorporates issues of identity, and
5. applies knowledge about African American English to educational and
social issues.
I think we can agree that very little research is done in sociolinguistics in gen-
eral that addresses age or generation inclusively as a primary variable (Eckert
1997). Studies tend to include one or two age groups or cohorts to the exclu-
sion of others. Some studies show strong preference for particular age groups,
such as young adults, middle-age adults, or the elderly. Few studies actually
include multiple generations of speakers or very young speakers. We need more
cross-generation research that includes the (very) young, the very ends of the
age spectrum as well as everything in between. Fortunately, Bailey (this vol-
ume) and Cukor-Avila (this volume) are doing just that.
Although recent research has included sociohistorical data and sociocultural
context (as is the case with the Bailey, Cukor-Avila, Sutcliffe, and Wolfram
chapters in this volume), there is nevertheless a need for more. We still have not
sorted out all the sociocultural and historical data that bears on language use in
 State of the art in AAE Research 

the African American community (see, also, Wolfram this volume about this
issue). In conjunction with that incomplete data is the lack of data that signifi-
cantly address issues of identity. I, for one, would welcome a body of research
that operationalizes identity as a construct, including the multi-faceted aspects
of identity, such as motivation (e.g., self-efficacy, goals, and possible selves),
resilience, and ethnicity. For example, the study of motivation involves looking
for answers to two basic questions: “What influences our engagement in some
activities over other activities?’’ and “What influences sustaining or discontinu-
ing those activities?’’ Goals are one answer to those questions. In other words,
goals act as points of comparison for determining where we are in relationship
to where we want to be. As such, goals provide direction for our thoughts, feel-
ings, and behavior. Surely incorporating such constructs would be beneficial in
better piecing and understanding the sociocultural and historical contexts of
language use in the African American community. The combination of those
factors would provide a more complete picture not only of language use in the
African American community but about language in general.
Rickford/Rickford (2000: 135) provide a specific example that suggests the
usefulness of identity as a construct for analyzing data about the sociocultural
and historical contexts for the language of Africans in America.

[The slave code of 1705] increased punishments for slaves by providing that for
petty offences, slaves were to be whipped, maimed or branded; for robbing a house
or a store a slave was to be given sixty lashes by the sheriff, placed in the pillory
with his ears nailed to the posts for a half-hour, his ears then to be severed from
his head . . . . For the first time too, the law prescribed the castration of recaptured
fugitive slaves.
Laws like these might have erected or reinforced sociopsychological barriers
between blacks and whites, fomenting black resentment and leading to the crystal-
lization of a black identity expressed, in part, through a distinctive vernacular. No
slave who had had his ears nailed to a post and severed from his head would have
wanted to speak exactly like his persecutors, no matter how many hours he had
worked alongside them in the fields.

I remember once hearing someone say how they found it interesting that Jews
are told to never forget their past, their history, but Blacks are told to forget
theirs in every way. Another irony is that historical scholars often stress the
need to study history in order to avoid committing the same sins of the past —
learn from what has been before. However, I think we could also efficaciously
use the past to help explain the present since what is going on now in the Afri-
can American community and society at large may not be so different from
 Sonja L. Lanehart

what has gone on before. The complexity of identity may help to illuminate
research in and application to language in the African American community.
The last call for more research could be a direct benefactor of the previous
four calls for more research and is related to making research not only applica-
ble to real issues (see Foster this volume, Labov this volume, and Wyatt this
volume) but accessible to all people (see Wolfram this volume). One of the big-
gest problems with sociolinguistic research in general and research in African
American English is that only a small set of people seem to know anything about
it or how or why it is useful to more than just the people who research it. There
really are substantial benefits to better disseminating research in sociolinguistics
to society at large — and even scholars in fields besides language (see Foster this
volume). A good example of the problem with lack of dissemination is the repe-
tition of a controversy involving African American English every few years (see
Baugh 2000 and Rickford/Rickford 2000). The latest was the Oakland Ebonics
controversy that began in 1996. Although the latest controversy over African
American English won’t be the last, it’s disconcerting to see the same battle
waged over and over without any resolution. What is even more disconcerting
is the fact that some African Americans, the oppressed, are as disparaging of
their own language as Whites, the oppressors. The very people who use African
American English everyday are some of the most vocal against it. Spears (this
volume) suggests a sense of shame might be one reason for this response by
some African Americans since language norms for African Americans are often
very distinct from Whites (see, also, Zeigler this volume and Troutman this
volume) and, therefore, very conspicuous (although, as implied in Morgan this
volume, that conspicuousness adds to instead of detracting from the appropria-
tion of Black language norms by mainstream commercial media). However,
while African American English speakers deny there is such a thing as African
American English, they continue to use it. Clearly there is an issue of covert
prestige involved because no matter how much African American English speak-
ers denigrate African American English and say it’s “bad’’ English, they continue
to use and promote it within the African American community (Lanehart 1999).
One of the useful things that came out of the latest controversy about Afri-
can American English was the term ‘Ebonics’ because it gave linguists and lay
people alike a common term even though linguists had not used that term to
refer to language use in the African American community (though, as Mufwene
this volume suggests, a term from the African American community itself
might be more efficacious). The term of choice among most linguists is still
‘African American (Vernacular) English’, but when trying to reach a broader
 State of the art in AAE Research 

audience and trying to ensure some sort of common understanding for termi-
nology, ‘Ebonics’ is clearly the term of choice. Other benefits are the increasing
number of books sought and published as a result of the controversy that deal
with language use in the African American community. For that, I am grateful.
Of course, by better disseminating knowledge about African American Eng-
lish, we can also better apply that knowledge to address educational and social
issues we confront, such as the consistent gap between African Americans and
European Americans from test scores to salaries. I do not think you could find
many people who would successfully argue against the idea that African Ameri-
can English is so ridiculed and despised because it is spoken by a people who
are ridiculed and despised (see Baugh this volume). The people are not separate
from the language. Hence, endeavors that seek to realize the connection be-
tween language and its users are ones worth pursuing and ones that are ulti-
mately most beneficial to advancing our knowledge about any language variety.
I hope that scholars, students, and lay people alike will come to read this
book with an interest in learning about language use in the African American
community and will leave with a better sense of what African American English
entails and the importance of it (as well as any other language variety).

. What is African American English?

Essential to a collection such as this is a paper that engages the oft-asked ques-
tion, “What is African American English?’’ As such, in Chapter 2, Salikoko
Mufwene addresses this question. Central to this issue of late is the distinction
between African American English (AAE) and African American Vernacular
English (AAVE). For Mufwene, African American English includes Gullah and
other varieties of English used by African Americans that have been excluded
from the linguistics literature; AAVE does not. As such, ‘African American
English’ encompasses the whole of language use in the African American com-
munity and not just what may appear as peculiarities or the most striking fea-
tures. The entire system should not be segmented based on what seems “au-
thentic’’ or peculiarly non-standard, but, instead, on what actually describes the
language of a people.
Mufwene maintains that the most likely answer to the question (“What is
African American English?’’), given comparisons to definitions of other lan-
guages, is: “African American English is English as spoken by or among African
Americans.’’ That is the answer most of the participants in a pilot survey
 Sonja L. Lanehart

designed by Mufwene gave in response to the question. However, Mufwene

goes on to problematize this definition and provide a historical overview and
comparative analysis of how linguists discuss varieties in general but the lan-
guage of African Americans in particular. He argues that linguists have done
a poor job of including the voice of those who actually speak a language in the
labeling of their language.
As noted above, this line of reasoning, therefore, can include Gullah under
the umbrella of ‘African American English’ since Gullah is spoken by African
Americans. However, in “What is African American English?,’’ Mufwene notes
that the debate about the Oakland Ebonics resolution left Gullah out in the
cold even though many of the education-related problems apply as much to
AAVE-speakers as to Gullah-speakers. Mufwene argues that part of the prob-
lem lies in the monopolization of the term ‘vernacular’ (i.e., one’s everyday
language; the language one is most comfortable with) for the varieties of
English spoken by African Americans outside Gullah-speaking communities
as if Gullah were not a vernacular. As such, Mufwene believes the traditional
distinction between AAVE and Gullah, though likely based on structural
boundaries, needs to be revisited.
Appended to Chapter 2 is a survey of the American population started by
Mufwene to reveal whether “Ebonics’’ is considered synonymous with ‘African
American English’; whether there is variation and what the pattern of variation
is in the way Americans conceive of them; and what the findings entail for
questions that underlie the debate about the Oakland Ebonics resolutions.
Among other things, the layperson’s and the linguist’s notions of African
American English are contrasted, in part, to determine what linguists can learn
from lay people and how, in turn, they can educate lay people. Mufwene aptly
notes that there should certainly be some more efficient ways of sharing less
technical aspects of our scholarship with non-experts!

. African American English and other varieties of English

Part 2 consists of three chapters that discuss African American English in the
context of other varieties of English, namely Southern Vernacular Englishes and
English-based creoles. The authors in general provide a good review of the
literature on past research in African American (Vernacular) English and a
description of improvements in their own research as a result or improvements
they suggest need to occur.
 State of the art in AAE Research 

In Chapter 3, “The Relationship between African American Vernacular

English and White Vernaculars in the American South: A sociocultural history
and some phonological evidence,’’ Guy Bailey compares the phonology of
African American Vernacular English to the phonology of White Vernacular
English in the American South, the region where African American English first
emerged, as a way to establish a clearer understanding of Black-White speech
relationships historically and currently. According to Bailey, phonology has
long been the neglected stepchild of research on African American English, but
recent work suggests that phonology is crucial to understanding both linguistic
discrimination and the history of African American English. Phonology also
provides a useful guide to the complex evolution of Black-White speech rela-
tionships. Bailey highlights the fact that the relationships between African
American Vernacular English and White vernaculars are fluid and evolving and
are, to some extent, reflexes of the sociohistorical contexts in which these
vernaculars have developed.
To explore these developing relationships, Bailey builds upon recent work
to examine not only the consonant features treated in traditional discussions
of African American Vernacular English, but also vowel features, including the
use of vowel space. The perspective is both historical and comparative, looking
at how phonological changes in African American Vernacular English and in
Southern White Vernacular English (SWVE) have altered the relationships
between these varieties over time. The primary source of data for the chapter
comes from mechanically recorded interviews with African Americans and
Whites from the Brazos Valley area of Texas, but this data is also compared to
other parts of the South. The dates of birth of both the African American and
the White informants range from the mid 1840s to the early 1980s. These data
suggest a complex history that reflects the unique origins, the shared history,
and the continuing independent development of these two varieties. These data
also address the calls for more research that include sociohistorical data,
sociocultural contexts, and cross-generation data.
Overall, Bailey presents a convincing argument for the importance of
sociocultural and historical contexts to arriving at a possible consensus about
Black-White speech relationships while clearly and concisely synthesizing and
historically situating research perspectives regarding African American English.
In short, he provides a map for where we are and how we got there and a plan
for where we might want to be.
In Chapter 4, “Co-existing Grammars: The Relationship between the
Evolution of African American and White Vernacular English in the South,’’
 Sonja L. Lanehart

Patricia Cukor-Avila extends Guy Bailey’s argument and focuses on the rela-
tionship between African American Vernacular English and Southern White
Vernacular English through an analysis of grammatical features which have
been previously identified as characteristic of the two varieties. According to
Cukor-Avila, the social and economic history of contact in the South between
African Americans and European Americans provides a unique opportunity for
studying the evolution of grammatical features in each of these speech varieties.
The main source of data for the analysis comes from recorded interviews with
African Americans and Whites, born between 1907 and 1982 from neighboring
rural Texas communities, who were recorded as part of an on-going longitudi-
nal, ethnolinguistic study of rural Texas speech. The data are compared with
grammatical evidence from previous studies of vernacular speech in the South.
Cukor-Avila contends that the results suggest that the relationship between
AAVE and SWVE grammar is one of shared and unique features which has
changed over time. Additionally, she argues that the data reveal co-existing
grammars within each of the vernaculars, suggesting a more complex gram-
matical history than has been previously reported.
In the last chapter of this section, Chapter 5, “The Voice of the Ancestors:
New Evidence on Nineteenth-Century African American English,’’ David
Sutcliffe tackles the controversy over the nineteenth century and earlier origins
of African American English that have generated heat but also a great deal of
light, particularly over recent years. He argues it is clear that African American
English has been in a symbiotic relationship with White Southern English for
more than three centuries, with influences going in both directions. However,
Sutcliffe believes the findings he reports point to another facet to the story.
According to Sutcliffe, though research has established that contemporary Afri-
can American English has a number of creole-like features, we can now see that
such features do, after all, have their counterparts in nineteenth-century data.
Morph-by-morph combing through the WPA (Works Project Admin-
istration) Ex-slave Recordings has brought to light what Sutcliffe believes are
previously unnoticed traces of an earlier more creole-like layer to African
American speech. These traces occur in the data as isolated morphemes or
short “microswitches.’’ Sutcliffe argues that this suggests that a nineteenth-
century plantation creole — or something very close to a creole — was spoken
in certain focal areas outside the Gullah area and perhaps in a more diffuse way
elsewhere. That being the case, the way is open to work toward a more bal-
anced synthesis between Anglicists and Creolists, given that both positions, in
a sense, are now proving themselves right in Sutcliffe’s view. Sutcliffe then re-
 State of the art in AAE Research 

views the new evidence for the prior creole in some detail, looks at the range
of language that may have been in use, and examines the way the interface
between more and less creole forms were handled. Also discussed is the meth-
odology used for the elucidation — researcher expectations, immersion of the
researcher in the data and its historical background, finer grained attention to
vowel-length, vowel assimilation, phonetic detail, and suprasegmental patterns.
In this discussion of data analysis, as is the case in other areas of research,
it is necessary to note the importance of the position of the transcriber and the
role those sentiments potentially play in what the transcriber believes he or she
hears on an audio tape. Sutcliffe further stresses the importance of the tran-
scriber’s knowledge of language(s) relevant to the possible sources of the
language being transcribed. Hence, the more objective we are in our stance and
the more knowledgeable we are about African American English, English-based
creoles, and varieties of British and American English, the better we are able to
more accurately assess the nature of our data and its implications.
Interestingly enough, it is Sutcliffe’s discussion of the Africanness of Afri-
can American English and English-based creoles in the “New World’’ that
makes it a fitting segue to the next chapter and the next section.

. African American English in the community

Whereas Part 2 provided a broad overview of the historical aspects of African

American English, Part 3 contextualizes language use in the African American
community by looking at various aspects of African American English in its
cultural setting. The community of the speakers themselves takes center stage
by presenting specific aspects of how culturally rich language use in, by, and of
the African American community really is.
In Chapter 6, “Something to Shout About: African American Vernacular
English as a Linguistic and Cultural Treasure,’’ Mary Zeigler explores the es-
sence of the distinctiveness of African American Vernacular English. African
American Vernacular English isn’t just about linguistic features. African Ameri-
can Vernacular English is part of a culture, a way of being that is more than the
sum of some linguistic features. As Zeigler explains, a linguistic treasure has a
different existence from the notion that is generally ascribed to the concept of
“treasure.’’ In fact, it seems to function in counter distinction to that notion of
accumulated, stored-up wealth. First, according to Zeigler, in general consider-
ations, a treasure is an entity or an accumulation of entities which have value
 Sonja L. Lanehart

or worth because they are precious, rare, desirable, and sought after. The accu-
mulated valuables are then stored away: removed from general use, locked in
a box secure from prying hands, available only to a privileged few. But in a
seeming contradiction to that notion, a language is treasurable perhaps because
it may be desirable or sought after, but certainly not because it is rare nor be-
cause it is removed from general use. Language dies when it is put away. Lan-
guage thrives with everyday use. It grows and accumulates precious entities as
it is being handled by more and more prying hands.
Zeigler further asserts that a linguistic treasure is a language which has accu-
mulated a storehouse of valuables for the speakers as it is used in the growth and
nurturing of its community. The everyday users of this treasure, the vernacular
speakers of that community, keep it “phat’’ and growing, mounting in value as
it serves their needs. A similar sort of treasure serves the African American com-
munity, for African American Vernacular English has always been one of its
most valuable resources. It is a resource that grows with use; a resource whose
value increases with the volume of trade among its speakers within a com-
munity. Its value exceeds that of monetary treasures which can be hoarded or
misspent. It is stored in the cultural consciences of an American community, it
is the storehouse of the African American culture. According to Zeigler, African
American Vernacular English is the linguistic resource which has given Africans
in America a code by which to retain remnant ties with their homeland. It’s the
linguistic resource which has given African Americans a code by which to main-
tain community identity, through the Word — the word of story, song, and
ritual. African American Vernacular English is the linguistic resource which has
passed along the cultural consciousness of its people — the counter language of
freedom and survival; the secret code which masked revolution.
In Chapter 7, “‘Ain’t Nothin’ But a G Thang’’’: Grammar, Variation, and
Language Ideology in Hip Hop Identity,’’ Marcyliena Morgan explores the
values, norms, beliefs, and practices that constitute and mediate the Hip Hop
community/nation and converge around African American urban youth cul-
ture and language. She notes that, in earlier research, the African American
speech community was characterized by linguistic homogeneity that resisted
most political, social, historical and geographical divisions and policies that
normally lead to significant language change toward the dominant variety. The
introduction of Hip Hop language ideology and values has resulted in an accel-
eration and significant re-appropriation and restructuring of language practices
by African American youth who have, for the first time in urban African Amer-
ican communities, intentionally highlighted and re-constructed regional and
local urban language norms. These norms essentially partition the urban com-
 State of the art in AAE Research 

munity, thereby constantly marking people — young African Americans — as

cultural insiders or outsiders. According to Morgan (p.c. March 2000), “I’m
trying to argue that these are general principles followed irrespective of class
and therefore it follows cultural norms and principles. The reason I use ‘AAE’
is because the analysis uses African American culture as a way to represent and
construct an urban A[frican] A[merican] identity against a middle class white
one perceived to be hostile. The linguistic strategies used around the lexicon
seem to be more representative of general cultural language ideologies than
vernacular perspectives. Some of them require rather sophisticated grammatical
knowledge.’’
Morgan argues that the emergence of a new urban language ideology that
is consciously and often defiantly cultural, rather than constructed against
dominant cultural norms, relies on the use of African American English lin-
guistic features and principles of grammaticalization. This process, which has
been operating in this fashion since the late 1970s, did not have far-sweeping
consequences until the middle 1980s when technology shifted and intimate
friendship networks, or “crews,’’ based on Hip Hop artists became prominent
outside of the East coast. The drive to distinguish and articulate linguistic char-
acteristics which represent major cities on the East and West coasts have re-
sulted in the marginalization of the “Eastwest’’ or middle regions (e.g., Chicago,
Detroit). It has also resulted in a new increase of widespread yet locally marked
lexicon and an awareness of the importance of phonology — especially the
contrasts between vowel length, consonant deletion, and syllabic stress — in
representing urban cultural space.
In Chapter 8, “African American Women: Talking that Talk,’’ Denise
Troutman asserts that scholars focusing on women’s language have worn blind-
ers of “monolithic womanism,’’ supporting the idea that only one style of
women’s speech behavior exists for all women, without regard for sociolinguis-
tic factors, such as race, class, or age. As such, African American women’s lan-
guage is viewed as being the same as that of White women or the same as that
of Black men — neither of which is true. Although African American women’s
language shares features with both White women’s language and Black men’s
language, it is distinct from both.
Troutman’s chapter describes and contextualizes several features of African
American women’s language. She highlights the social construction of African
American women’s language, particularly as established in historical contexts
(e.g., the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas Senate Hearings) and in the media (e.g.,
Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever), as well as research by African American women about
African American women.
 Sonja L. Lanehart

In the last chapter in this section, Chapter 9, “Directness in the Use of Afri-
can American English,’’ Arthur Spears focuses on speech typified by what he
calls directness, which is identified by some combination of several characteris-
tics — aggressiveness, candor, dysphemism, negative criticism, upbraiding,
conflict, abuse, insult, and obscenity — all of which are frequently deployed in
the context of consciously manipulated interpersonal drama. He argues that
these characteristics reflect the inherent cultural bias, or cultural loadedness, of
a significant portion of the mainstream American English lexicon.
For Spears, directness (which also includes indirection) often involves in-
version (i.e., what may superficially or on a literal level seem to be direct is
actually non-direct and vice-versa) and can also be characterized on the basis
of topic (e.g., a willingness to bring up certain topics in certain contexts). Di-
rect speech also requires contextualization for correct interpretation. Spears
presents directness as a principle of African American language use which is
identified on the basis of form — the actual sounds, words, phrases, etc., that
are used — and content — the meaning of what is said on the semantic and
pragmatic levels.
Spears also confronts the very important issue of conflicts between Black
and White behavioral norms, one of which involves directness. However, he
notes that though there is significantly more directness in Black language
behavior, all communities have some directness in their speech — it is just a
matter of degree. Directness, as Spears notes, in all social settings, comes in
degrees, affected in complex ways by the many mental and material factors that
come into play in any social situation.
One of Spears’ crucial points, though, is that Black people should not be
ashamed of their behavior when it is in extreme conflict with White main-
stream norms. Overall, Spears tries to show that a focus on language use in the
African American community is as important today as it was in the 1960s and
1970s when it was studied significantly more than it is now.
Spears provides numerous examples throughout and ends by contextual-
izing his discussion in the educational setting. As such, his chapter is a perfect
segue to the next section.

. African American English and education

Part 4 examines and sometimes applies the knowledge we have about African
American English to educational issues that need to be addressed. As the last
 State of the art in AAE Research 

call for more research indicated, there is a great need for bridging the gap
between theory and application, scholars’ knowledge and lay people’s beliefs.
So far, we have gone from the simple question “What is African American
English?’’ to historical notions of African American English, to language use
in the African American community, and finally to how any or all of it is
relevant to the education of African American children. As such, Part 4
draws upon and/or heeds all five calls for more research in all the previous
chapters.
In Chapter 10, “The Role of Family, Community and School in Children’s
Acquisition and Maintenance of African American English,’’ Toya Wyatt pro-
vides an overview of the child language acquisition process as it applies to Afri-
can American children. She then addresses the multiple sources of language
input and various sociocultural factors that help shape the communicative
patterns of African American children. This includes factors such as the family’s
community of residence, language variety status, educational background, so-
cioeconomic class, and social history; the child’s community affiliations (e.g.,
peer networks); and community, educator, and wider society attitudes toward
African American English. She also discusses the implications for the educa-
tional instruction of African American English child speakers in the regular
classroom setting and the clinical management of African American English
child speakers who are enrolled in speech therapy programs due to communi-
cation difficulties in African American English as well as General American
English.
Wyatt asserts that although various constituencies have offered a myriad
of solutions to address the educational and language instructional needs of
African American children, few of these solutions take into consideration the
complexity of the child language acquisition process for African American and
other child populations. In addition, the educational solutions that have been
proposed for African American children rarely address the range of language
diversity that exists within the African American speech community. With her
own data, Wyatt substantiates that not all African American children speak
African American English. Furthermore, children who do speak African Ameri-
can English differ from each other in the degree or frequency with which they
use African American English features and rules.
Wyatt believes that understanding the course of language development and
differing language socialization experiences of individual children is crucial for
educators who are involved with the development of effective second-dialect
instruction and classroom language programs. Likewise, this same information
 Sonja L. Lanehart

is equally important for speech and language clinicians who have to distinguish
between normal dialect difference and true communicative disorders in African
American English child clients.
In Chapter 11, “Pay Leon, Pay Leon, Pay Leon, Paleontologist: Using Call-
and-Response to Facilitate Language Mastery and Literacy Acquisition among
African American Students,’’ Michèle Foster laments that despite three decades
of research on African American English, educational workshops that aim to
improve the academic achievement, particularly the literacy achievement, of
African American students, still emphasize differences between “standard’’
English and African American English. As a result of this lament, Foster chal-
lenges herself and the research community to investigate how features of Afri-
can American English other than phonology and syntax might be adapted to
improve instruction of African American English child speakers.
Using data from three years of an on-going study of one teacher’s elemen-
tary school classrooms, Foster presents a working definition and points out some
of the key dimensions of the instructional uses of call-and-response. After sur-
veying relevant research, examining some of the conceptual and analytic issues
related to call-and-response, and describing the classroom that is the focus of her
latest research, she presents and analyzes several examples of call-and-response
with the goal of illuminating some of the fundamental, key, explanatory dimen-
sions of this discourse pattern. All the while, Foster is aware of criticisms of the
use of call-and-response simply for recall of factual information rather than for
higher-order learning and sets out to determine whether call-and-response
features are suitable for teaching the kind of complicated understandings that
today’s newer curriculum standards are demanding from students.
In the end, Foster applies our knowledge about a core feature of African
American English in an educational setting, offering one possible successful
pedagogical strategy for teachers of African American children. However, she
does admit that it may be more difficult to assist teachers who may not already
possess the linguistic and cultural knowledge she discusses in acquiring suffi-
cient and appropriate knowledge about African American discourse features in
order to incorporate them into classroom instruction in a relevant manner
instead of in artificial and stilted ways.
In Chapter 12, ‘‘Applying Our Knowledge of African American English to
the Problem of Raising Reading Levels in Inner-City Schools,’’ William Labov
discusses his latest efforts to use linguistics research to better teach inner-city
children who speak African American Vernacular English to read. As he indi-
cates, one of the most serious social problems of the United States is the failure
 State of the art in AAE Research 

of schools to teach inner-city children to read. Though learning to read does

not draw on the same faculties as learning a first oral language, the relation of
the English alphabet to the English sound system involves most of the crucial
issues of phonology. The most sophisticated programs for teaching phonics and
phonemic awareness show little recognition of the difficulties that children
have in relating sounds and letters in complex syllables. Some progress has been
made in raising reading levels for African American children with linguistically-
informed methods of teaching decoding of common vocabulary. Such linguistic
techniques can succeed only when they are developed in a cultural context that
involves the major concerns and interests of inner-city children.
Labov discusses his reading program in Philadelphia, which is in collabora-
tion with California State University at Hayward and the Oakland Unified
School Board, and the progress he has made in trying to solve the mystery of
teaching inner-city children who speak African American Vernacular English
to read. Labov acknowledges that linguists have a debt to pay to society by ap-
plying their knowledge to solving real problems that real people have whenever
their expertise can do so as indicated by the very nature of the field we call
‘‘applied linguistics.’’ In the end, Labov, after researching this issue in various
ways for over 30 years, finally acknowledges that dialect can interfere with
teaching children to read and it is an obstacle that we can overcome by apply-
ing knowledge and research not only in linguistics but also in joint efforts with
reading educators and others who are concerned about the literacy achievement
of all children.
In the last chapter in this section, Chapter 13, “Applying Linguistic Knowl-
edge of African American English to Help Students Learn and Teachers Teach,’’
John Baugh asserts that all successful education is a cooperative enterprise. As
such, he discusses the need for collaborative cooperation among adult educa-
tional advocates (which may include professional educators and/or parents),
professional educators (which include administrators, teachers, and staff mem-
bers), and students in any successful educational enterprise while pondering
some of the positive and negative consequences that can influence each group
within this constellation.
Throughout, Baugh strives to introduce some of the linguistic contribu-
tions that may enhance the work of educators, parents, and students as well as
identify some of the common denominators that will be essential to improving
the success of the vast majority of African American students, regardless of
their locale.
Baugh concludes on an important note of caution: No child should ever be
 Sonja L. Lanehart

made to feel ashamed of her or his linguistic or cultural heritage, and especially
not at the hands of professional educators.

. Where do we go from here?

In the final chapter of the book, Chapter 14, “Reconsidering the Sociolinguistic
Agenda for African American English: The Next Generation of Research and
Application,’’ Walt Wolfram incorporates the research and ideas from the pre-
vious chapters in his discussion of the history of research in African American
English and where future research in African American English needs to go in
order to move to the next level.
Wolfram starts with an overview of how three major issues dominated
the consideration of African American English in the last half of the twentieth
century:
1. synchronic issues, ranging from broad-based issues of definition (as high-
lighted in Foster, Morgan, Mufwene, Spears, and Troutman this volume)
to the examination of phonetic and morphosyntactic detail (as found in
Bailey’s and Cukor-Avila’s descriptive accounts in this volume);
2. diachronic issues (i.e., positions on the genesis and development of African
American English, as highlighted by Mufwene, Bailey, Cukor-Avila, and
Sutcliffe in this volume); and
3. application issues (i.e., using sociolinguistic knowledge to address edu-
cational and social problems affecting African Americans in American
society, motivated by principles of social commitment, as highlighted by
Wyatt, Foster, Labov, and Baugh in this volume).

Wolfram notes that historical development is integrally related to contempo-

rary issues of description and application cannot be separated neatly from
description nor history.
Wolfram reviews each of these three issues in terms of current empirical
sociolinguistic evidence, showing points of agreement and disagreement. For
disputable cases, such as the continuing debate over the donor sources of Afri-
can American English, he proposes a set of principles for admitting evidence
for or against competing hypotheses that might guide future research. As in
the beginning of the chapter, Wolfram uses the three issues outlined above to
draw conclusions and suggest future directions for research in African Ameri-
can English.
 State of the art in AAE Research 

While addressing synchronic, diachronic, and application issues, Wolfram

also introduces data from a longstanding insular African American community
on the coast of North Carolina to demonstrate how data from such communi-
ties can provide essential evidence for determining the historical roots of Afri-
can American English and the changing relationship of African American Eng-
lish to localized dialect varieties over the twentieth century. Also of note about
this study, Wolfram incorporates sociocultural and historical contexts as inte-
gral to the data.
I hope the chapters presented in this volume move research in language use
in the African American community further than it has been and in such a way
as to promote queries and applications beneficial to all those affected by a
language variety that has stirred more controversy than consensus inside and
outside of the community that uses it.

Notes

. According to Bandura (1997: 3), “perceived self-efficacy refers to beliefs in one’s

capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given
attainments’’.
. According to Markus/Nurius (1986: 954), “Possible selves represent individuals’ ideas of
what they might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of
becoming, and thus provide a conceptual link between cognition and motivation . . . . An
individual is free to create any variety of possible selves, yet the pool of possible selves
derives from the categories made salient by the individual’s particular sociocultural and
historical context and . . . by the individual’s immediate social experiences. Possible selves
thus have the potential to reveal the inventive and constructive nature of the self but they
also reflect the extent to which the self is socially determined and constrained’’.
. Le Page’s (1986: 23) ‘acts of identity’ construct explicates this notion further. “People
create their linguistic systems (and we all have more than one) so as to resemble those
of the groups with which from time to time they wish to identify. Both the groups, and
their linguistic attributes, exist solely in the mind of each individual. When we talk we
project the universe as we see it on to others as on to a cinema screen in our own images,
expressed in the language we consider appropriate at that moment, and we invite others
by these acts to share our universe. This does not necessarily mean that we accommodate
our behaviour to resemble that of our audience, though we may do so. Rather, we behave
in the way that — unconsciously or consciously — we think appropriate to the group
with which at that moment we wish to identify. This may be quite distinct from the
group we are talking to’’.
 Sonja L. Lanehart

References

Bandura, Albert. 1997. Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control. New York: W.H. Freeman.
Baugh, John. 2000. Beyond Ebonics: The Linguistic Legacy of American Slavery. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
Eckert, Penelope. 1997. “Age as a sociolinguistic variable’’. In Florian Coulmas, ed. The
Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, 151–67.
Lanehart, Sonja L. 1996. “The language of identity’’. Journal of English Linguistics 24: 322–31.
—— 1999. “African American Vernacular English’’. In Joshua Fishman, ed. Handbook of
Language and Ethnic Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 211–25.
Le Page, Robert. 1986. “Acts of identity’’. English Today 8: 21–4.
LeClair, Thomas. 1981. “A conversation with Toni Morrison. ‘The language must not
sweat’’’. The New Republic (March 21), 25–9.
Markus, Hazel & Paula Nurius. 1986. “Possible selves’’. American Psychologist 41: 954–69.
Rickford, John Russell & Russell John Rickford. 2000. Spoken Soul: The Story of Black Eng-
lish. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Smitherman, Geneva. 2000. Talkin that Talk: Language, Culture and Education in African
America. London: Routledge.
 Chapter 2

What is African American English?

Salikoko S. Mufwene
University of Chicago

. Introduction

I have often been tempted not to answer the question in the title of this chapter
otherwise than by saying: “African American English (AAE) is English as spoken
by or among African Americans.’’ This is actually the dominant answer I have
received to the same question, from the majority of lay people (and some lin-
guistics students) in a pilot survey I conducted in Chicago in the summer of
1998. The answer is convenient in a way, because we do not go around asking
people to define or describe Cockney, Japanese, or Swahili for us (pace incon-
sistent dictionary definitions!) in order to determine what they are.
A language variety is typically associated with a community of speakers and,
in many communities, a language means no more than the particular way its
members speak. Without knowing what particular structural features are pecu-
liar to it, we can confidently say, for instance, that Japanese is the language of
the Japanese people just as Swahili is the language of the WaSwahili (literally
‘coastal people’, in reference to East Africa). The definitions work regardless of
any disagreements we may have about who the WaSwahili are, how to classify
the Japanese genetically, or about the fact that we may come across a Japanese
who does not speak Japanese or a MSwahili who does not speak (Ki)Swahili.
Most of us who learned English in school have also learned that Cockney is a
particular working-class English variety spoken in London and that it is held
in low esteem. Many of us do not even know what it sounds like and await our
first experience with it before we can work out cognitive strategies for recogniz-
ing it the next time around. As I observe again below, we proceed the same way
in associating proper names with their bearers — and, according to Kripke
(1972), the same baptismal practice applies to how we associate “natural kind
terms,’’ such as tiger and lemon, with their denotata.
 Salikoko S. Mufwene

The above associative definitions just assume that members of particular

social or geographic groups tend to speak similarly — not identically! — in
ways that distinguish them from other groups. It does not matter whether a
way of speaking considered peculiar to a group is treated as a language or as a
dialect of some language the group shares with other groups. We also typically
ignore the kind of community-internal variation that is found acceptable to
proficient speakers of a particular language variety, consistent with the follow-
ing observation by Goodenough (1964: 37) about knowledge of a language:
“whatever it is one has to know in order to communicate with its speakers as
adequately as they do with each other and in a manner they will accept as cor-
responding to their own.’’
The above notion of an acceptable range of variation is important as it can
lead to conflicting conceptions of some language varieties as separate from, or
the same as, some other related language varieties. I show below that this is
more or less the situation about AAVE and Gullah, regardless of other issues
arising from the ways they have been characterized in the literature. The situa-
tion is more or less the same for some Bantu language varieties of Group H16
in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While we linguists are happy referring,
for instance, to a KiKongo language (Bantu, Group H16), the BaKongo often
prefer to identify the particular ways they speak as KiYombe, KiNtandu,
KiManyanga, etc., just as they typically refer to themselves as BaYombe,
BaNtandu, BaManyanga, respectively, as much as they know they belong in a
larger group identifiable as BaKongo.
None of these divisions is predicated on the basis of an articulate and
unique set of features that distinguish the groups or language varieties from
each other, nor on how the relevant languages originated. They are predicated
on global sentiments of differences — just as we tell a James from a Larry and
a Jawanda from a Tracy in our communication networks — based not on
articulate lists of distinctive features but on global intuitive perceptions of
differences. Speakers make these intuitive distinctions regardless of the
name-bearers sharing with other individuals some of the features that help the
speakers identify them. We learn a lot about such naming matters and princi-
ples of identification from the literature in the philosophy of language,
although I am inspired in this essay especially by Kripke’s (1972) “baptismal
theory.’’ Focusing here on names that do not describe their bearers, the dis-
tinguishing features associated with a referent do not necessarily justify the
association nor the naming practice. Different users often resort to different
distinguishing features and these just help single out the bearer from many
 What is African American English? 

other potential referents. I argue that we proceed more or less the same way
with recognition of language varieties.
Putting things in a historical perspective, AAE has been branded a name —
primarily by scholars in this case — more or less in the same way that other
American English varieties have been identified ethnically since the 19th
century. After the abolition of slavery and with increasing immigrations from
Europe, different forms and degrees of segregation — inversely correlated with
different degrees of integration within the dominant English-speaking White
community — have taken place in North America, the most conspicuous of
which has been that of Blacks. A consequence of Abolition and immigration
was either the emergence or just the identification of ethnic varieties, such as
Jewish, German, Italian, or African American, as by-products of large volumes
of new immigrants from Russia (most of them Jewish), Germany, Austria, and
Italy during the second half of the 19th century (Bodnar 1991: 534). The (more
extensive) stigmatization of AAE was an extension of the (further) segregation
of the African-American population after the Jim Crow Laws were passed
in 1877.
What cannot be denied is indeed also the fact that English varieties associ-
ated with African Americans have received the lion’s share of attention, corre-
lated more with the socio-economic segregation of their speakers than with the
greater distinctiveness of their structural features. For instance, Old Amish
English is probably as different from American middle-class English varieties
as Gullah is, but it has received little attention. Another reason is that Africans
have been suspected since the early 18th century to have influenced Southern
White varieties of American English, making them different from British and
other North American English varieties.
As well documented by Brasch (1981), there were already attempts in the
18th century to represent the speech of African Americans as diverging from
that of White Americans in literature qua “belles lettres.’’ However, as Brasch
also shows, the same literary attempts at negatively stereotyping the speech of
Africans are contradicted by advertisements in papers describing several slaves
born in North America as speaking good English as opposed to advertisements
describing slaves recently imported from Africa as speaking poor English. Like-
wise, Kulikoff (1986: 317) quotes Jones (1724) as saying that “slaves born in
Virginia ‘talk good English, and affect our language, habits, and customs’’’
(1956 edition: 75–6).
My hunch is that, if similar attention had been paid to the speech of
Whites who had immigrated from parts of Europe other than England, similar
 Salikoko S. Mufwene

observations could have been made about their successes and failures in the
acquisition of English in North America, other ecological factors being equal.
This is not to suggest that all (descendants of) Africans spoke the same way as
(descendants of) Europeans. History suggests that there must have been varia-
tion within every group of immigrants. The 17th century probably did not
provide justification for stereotyping the speech of Africans. When the 18th
century did, there were probably still a lot of (descendants of) Africans who
spoke like European colonists (Mufwene 2000a).
The kind of answer I started this essay with makes irrelevant whether AAE
shares features with other North American varieties of English or where the
features originated or how AAE developed (some of) its structural features, just
as it is irrelevant whether Swahili shares features with Chaga, Comorean, or any
other Bantu language of East Africa. In the same vein, it makes it irrelevant to
ask to what extent AAE varieties differ from other English dialects in North
America, just as it is irrelevant to ask in what respects, or to what extent, the
language varieties of the KiKongo cluster differ from, or resemble, each other.
One might choose to explore these things for no more than pure academic
curiosity.
I agree somewhat with Lippi-Green’s (1997a: 176) observation that “the
term AAVE itself is inexactly defined.’’ The position to identify the vernacular
as the range of English varieties spoken by or among African Americans also
makes it irrelevant to determine how much AAE varies internally. Thus it legit-
imizes Spears’ (1988) view that there is also a standard AAE as opposed to the
basilectal variety that has concerned linguists over the past few decades, viz.,
AAVE, which has been associated with little schooling (among other things, on
which I comment below).
However, the position I advocate does not unequivocally resolve the poten-
tial confusion arising from the fact that African Americans on the mainland
disenfranchise coastal South Carolina and Georgia’s variety called Gullah — a
name not known or used by any of its speakers! — as being a different variety.
It is indeed possible to misconstrue the situation and suggest that AAVE and
Gullah are separate varieties. Linguists have, in fact, not shed much light on it
in stipulating that Gullah is a creole and putatively a separate language, unfor-
tunately, when there is yet no consensus on whether creoleness is a structural
status and/or what makes a particular vernacular a creole. (I return to this
point below.) Yet, all that AAVE speakers say is that Gullah is not the same as
their variety — not that it is not English. The dilemma lies in whether, for in-
stance, Mufwene (2001) is justified in lumping AAVE and Gullah together as
 What is African American English? 

varieties of AAE. I find the position consistent with the identification of AAE
as “English as it is spoken by or among African Americans.’’ This characteriza-
tion, which assumes no monolithic system, seems consistent with statements
by speakers of both varieties that they speak English.
The answers to the question “What is AAE?’’ in my survey show that it is
perhaps futile to try to characterize a language variety by structural features that
putatively distinguish it uniquely from another variety. In a sense, language
varieties too are identified by Kripke’s (1972) baptismal theory (Mufwene
1999) and are associated post facto with structural features (not by any means
exclusive to a group of speakers) to facilitate recognition. That is, it should be
enough to identify the variety ostensibly, so to speak, and to associate it with
a particular community, regardless of what proportion of the relevant commu-
nity speaks it. It is somewhat like identifying an animal as a cat regardless of
what proportion of its morphological or genetic features may be identified as
typical of cats. As with any entity that bears a name, it matters little whether or
not one is successful in identifying it correctly the next time around. Nothing
in this kind of attitude should prevent us from moving on with our traditional
research agenda, viz., to study AAE, identifying what it shares with other Eng-
lish vernaculars and what it does not, developing all sorts of hypotheses about
its evolution, and, among other things, applying our findings to questions of
the education of its speakers.

. Some recent perspectives on the speech of African Americans

The above important observations did not prevent me from considering an

alternative answer to the question “What is AAE?’’ The alternative is actually
informative as it has prompted several other relevant questions, on which I
focus the rest of this chapter, hoping to arouse more thinking on the subject
matter. My interest in it was enhanced by a symposium I once organized on the
same question some years ago (1990) because I thought that thinking on it
collectively should help us explain things better to lay people, especially when
some native speakers deny that there is such a thing as AAE (other than “incor-
rect’’ or “improper’’ English) that must be distinguished from other North
American English varieties. Close to one third of the participants in the ap-
pended survey (i.e., 18 out of 63), all of them African Americans (representing
almost half of them — 18/41), deny that there is such a thing as AAE.
A position close to the latter is expressed by McWhorter (1997: 9–10):
 Salikoko S. Mufwene

It is a fact that Black English is not different enough from standard English to pose
any significant obstacle to speaking, reading, or writing it. Black English is simply
a dialect of English, just as standard English is . . .

It is mutually intelligible with standard English both on the page and spoken and
its speakers do not occupy a separate nation . . .

We also must not make the mistake of equating Black English with mere “street
slang.’’ Black English speakers indeed often use a colorful slang . . . just as standard
English speakers use slang . . .

African Americans are often aware of the similarity between Black speech and that
of poor Southern whites, such speech is essentially as different from standard Eng-
lish as Black English is.

McWhorter may echo accurately the sentiment of several African-Ameri-

cans, including some of my Gullah informants, who feel they speak varieties of
American English but in different ways from other Americans. For them, only
recent immigrants like myself, who do not sound like White Americans or like
African Americans, have an accent and, therefore, do not speak American Eng-
lish natively.
Interestingly, several African American mainlanders, especially those who
have not visited coastal South Carolina and Georgia, have confused Gullah
speakers with Bahamians (i.e., as speakers with a non-local, if not foreign, ac-
cent). This of course raises the question of whose point of view must be repre-
sented in our attempts to determine what AAE is. As noted above, Gullah
speakers say they speak English (Mufwene 1988), pace the stipulation of most
linguists. Their position is consistent with the approach that identifies a lan-
guage variety by associating it with its speakers: paying attention to how the
speakers identify their own way of speaking and deciding to whose language
variety they believe theirs to be related. If Gullah speakers are African Ameri-
cans and their variety is English-based, then one needs a criterion more reliable
than mutual intelligibility to justify the position that Gullah is not an English
dialect. Note that those of us who do not understand Cockney or Appalachian
English have not suggested we identify these varieties as separate languages,
leading to the suspicion that ignorance about the variety and/or the ethnic
identity of its speakers has something to do with how it is identified.
At the extreme opposite of McWhorter (1997) are those who claim that
AAE is a separate language altogether, grammatically rooted allegedly in Niger-
Congo languages. In the words of Smith (1998), it is allegedly — and in ways
I cannot imagine — a relexification of languages from this family. It goes
 What is African American English? 

without saying that only a scholar can produce such a characterization in the
same way that only an educated person, if not an expert, would say that English
is a West-Germanic language despite obvious structural differences among, for
instance, English, Dutch, and German.
It is hard to ignore in this connection that the Niger-Congo family of lan-
guages is typologically heterogeneous. A relexification of a structural system
putatively shared by all, or most, of them is an abstraction of such a high level
that even an approach to syntax that leaves much room for abstract structures
would have a hard time operationalizing such a hypothesis. This and other
problems related to the relexification hypothesis set aside, Smith (1998) echoes
in some ways Robert Williams’ (1975: vi) characterization of Ebonics as:

“the linguistic and paralinguistic features which on a concentric continuum repre-

sents the communicative competence of the West African, Caribbean, and the
United States slave descendant of African origin. It includes the various idioms,
patois, argots, ideolects [sic], and social dialects of Black people’’ especially those
who have been forced to adapt to colonial circumstances. Ebonics derives its form
from ebony (black) and phonics (sound, the study of sound) and refers to the
study of the language of Black people in all its cultural uniqueness.

The language identified here by Robert Williams is undoubtedly different

from what has concerned our scholarship over the past half century about com-
munication among African Americans. It is also in conflict with the fact that
the average African American does not think that Africans and Caribbeans
speak the same variety of English as they do, i.e., an English closer to theirs
(viz., AAE) than those varieties of English spoken by other Americans. Indeed,
reactions of the average African American to, for instance, African English (an-
other range of varieties!) do not reflect Robert Williams’ and Smith’s illusions.
To be sure, the above African Diaspora-based conception of Ebonics is an
abstraction similar in orientation to what Alleyne (1980) identifies as “Afro-
American,’’ making Gullah and AAVE varieties of a much broader geograph-
ical and social continuum of vernaculars. This view has some validity for
scholarly purposes, such as for comparative and genetic linguistics, but it is
hardly on the mundane level of speakers’ normal ability to determine whether
another person speaks like them. Smitherman (1997: 29) makes my point
clear as she identifies a “U.S. Ebonics,’’ or “USEB,’’ which includes AAVE and
Gullah but not Caribbean creole varieties nor African pidgin/creole varieties
(which are different from the more recent indigenized varieties spoken by
educated Africans).
 Salikoko S. Mufwene

If Robert Williams’ definition of Ebonics is what the Oakland Unified

School District Board meant by “Ebonics’’ in their December 1996 resolutions,
it is definitely not what most Americans, including African Americans and
linguists, understood by it. I am sure the position requires as much justification
as the statement that English is a Germanic language, which Smith (1998) iron-
ically disputes.
In the rest of this chapter, I focus only on Smitherman’s USEB. Her term
still does not solve the question of whether or not African American varieties
of English, including Gullah, are separate languages. While Smitherman (1997,
1998a) seems inclined to go along with Robert Williams, she also recognizes
USEB as
a synthesis of African (primarily West African) and European (primarily English)
linguistic-cultural traditions (. . .) [which acquires] its distinctiveness [by] the
nuanced meanings of these English words, the pronunciations, the ways in which
the words are combined to form grammatical statements, and the communicative
practices of the USEB-speaking community. In short, USEB may be thought of as
the Africanization of American English (1998: 30).

Surely, Smitherman makes allowance for significant African substrate influ-

ence in African-American varieties of English in ways still to be identified (cf.
also McWhorter 1997). However, none of this characterization in and of itself
militates for identifying them as a separate language. Not only do the vast ma-
jority of African Americans who speak AAE think they speak English, but also
Turner (1949), usually considered to have pioneered the study of African sub-
strate influence on AAE, identifies Gullah as a “dialect,’’ presumably of English.
Smitherman (1997: 31) may not have paid attention to the above detail
when she identifies Gullah as a “language,’’ presumably a separate one from
AAVE (another separate language?), and cites the title of Turner’s book,
Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. And she apparently simply ignored the fact
that the average African American, regardless of level of education, is sure they
speak American English, like European Americans do, all of them being aware
of differences among varieties of English considered American as opposed to
Caribbean and other varieties.
The fact that several European Americans resent AAE is part of the same
disfranchising attitude that several African American mainlanders hold toward
Gullah. Linguists should answer the question of whether such attitudes or na-
tive speakers’ sentiments determine how we identify them, viz., as separate
languages or as related dialects. Contact has also often been invoked as a reason
for separating AAE from other North American English varieties, as is indeed
 What is African American English? 

evident in Smitherman’s position. However, contact seems to have played a

role in the development of the other varieties too (Mufwene 1996, 2000a). Can
the linguist really overrule the native community’s sentiments of linguistic
affiliation and, if so, under what specific conditions?
One of the most interesting aspects of Smitherman’s discussion of USEB
is definitely her inclusion of Gullah as one of its varieties. In her discussion,
against the practice among linguists over the past 30 years or so, she has been
consistent with Labov’s (1972: xiii) original characterization of “Black English
Vernacular’’ as
the whole range of language [varieties] used by Black people in the United States:
a very large range indeed, extending from the Creole grammar of Gullah spoken
in the Sea Islands [and coastal marshlands] of South Carolina [and Georgia] to the
most formal and accomplished literary style.
Smitherman’s (1997) notion of USEB is reminiscent of discussions of AAE
in the 1960s and 1970s, in which William Stewart (1964, 1969) and Joe Dillard
(1972) cited examples alternately from Gullah and AAVE to make their points
for the distinctiveness of African American speech and for the creole origins
hypothesis. She is joined in her position here by Patricia J. Williams (1997: 7),
who characterizes “Black English’’ or “Ebonics’’ as “the enormous variations
in Black American speech, which range from true dialects, like Gullah, to a
panoply of distinctly different accents.’’ It is not clear how she distinguishes
between “dialect’’ and “accent,’’ but it is important to note the allowance she
makes for variation within “Ebonics.’’
Interestingly, during the fury of the debate that followed the Oakland Uni-
fied School District Board’s resolutions, Gullah is the part of AAE that “fell
between the cracks.’’ Yet its speakers are African Americans and all the motiva-
tions for those 1996 resolutions apply to Gullah-speaking school children too.
We linguists should ask ourselves whether we have done justice to its speakers
over the past 30–40 years, having stipulated that because it is a “creole’’ it must
be a separate language altogether. Its speakers, who are often shocked by the
application of the terms Gullah and creole to how they speak, say they speak
English! We should indeed ask ourselves whether we have been consistent prac-
titioners when on the one hand, we argue in theory that it is up to native
speakers to determine the social affiliation of the language variety they speak
and, on the other, we take it upon ourselves to determine who speaks English
and who does not on criteria that are far from being obvious.
Note that even similarities with English creoles, which may have been over-
rated compared to similarities with other varieties of English (McWhorter
 Salikoko S. Mufwene

1997), do not preclude the origins of some of the same features (if not most of
them) in colonial non-standard varieties of English (Mufwene 2000a). Claiming
English origins does not entail that the features would have been selected un-
modified into AAE or creoles, nor that they were selected independently of
influence from African languages. We seem to have been trapped by a mistaken
but well-entrenched tradition in genetic linguistics, which has favored linguistic
filiation from one parent, when reality and the evolutionary biology model on
which its cladograms are patterned dictate otherwise (Mufwene 1998).
Bearing in mind that ‘creole’ is a sociohistorical concept, not a linguistic
one (Mufwene 1997, 2000b), we should think over whether the creoleness of
a language variety is mutually exclusive of its identification as an English dia-
lect. Moreover, those who argue that, unlike Gullah, AAVE is not a creole
should note the contradiction they introduce in the debate in lumping the two
vernaculars together as North American varieties of Ebonics in the way defined
by Robert Williams (1975) and endorsed by Smitherman (1997). Their posi-
tions on creoleness suggest that AAVE and Gullah are varieties of Ebonics only
in the same abstract and genetic way they are related to, for instance, Caribbean
(English) creoles. One way or another, it seems necessary to justify lumping
creoles and AAVE as varieties of the same language and separate from North
American varieties of English on criteria that are adequately motivated academ-
ically, if we refuse to respect the sentiments of native speakers.
While Smith (1998: 49) argues that Ebonics, as “the language of slave de-
scendants of African origin,’’ is “the linguistic continuity of Africa in Black
America’’ (57), he also asks what criteria are used for classifying AAVE as a
dialect of English. He contends — certainly unjustifiably — that he has “found
no empirical evidence that English is even the ‘base’ from which ‘Black English’
derives’’ (50). Moreover, he observes that there is a discrepancy between claims
that AAVE is a dialect of English and the particular features we keep invoking
as typical of the variety. In his own words, “this ‘Black English’ is not the ‘Black
English’ that is often described as having characteristics distinctly different
from the Standard American English idiom’’ (53).
Indeed most studies of structures of AAVE, Gullah, and Caribbean creoles
have compared these systems misguidedly with “standard’’ English. What
Smith feeds us back through his inaccurate reasoning is a false picture of AAVE
and Gullah that we have helped create, not only by capitalizing too much on
differences but also by assuming a vector of differences that is sociohistorically
the most unjustified. Aside from the fact that Africans were not exposed to
“standard’’ English on the plantations and farms of the New World, even White
 What is African American English? 

non-standard English vernaculars are markedly different structurally from

“standard’’ English. Typical studies of structural features of AAVE have sug-
gested misguidedly that it is more different from White American “standard’’
English than other White non-standard vernaculars are! This is something that
remains to be demonstrated.
As indicated above, I am very much inclined to identify AAE rather in-
clusively (as in Mufwene 2000a) and by association with its speakers, espous-
ing their sentiments. However, the success of such a position depends largely
on whether one assumes what Lippi-Green (1997b: 10) identifies as the
“wider definition’’ or “narrow(er) definition’’ of AAVE. The “wider defini-
tion’’ is consistent with Patricia Williams’s (1997: 8) observation that, “Even
solidly middle-class Blacks with strings of higher degrees and perfect com-
mand of standard grammatical structure can face discrimination if their ac-
cents are deemed in any way identifiably ‘Black’.’’ It is consistent also with
Spears’ (1988, 1998) position that there is also standard African American
English which is distinct from White American “standard’’ English primarily
by its prosodic features and some vocabulary items. According to Spears
(1998: 230, note 5):
I use the term African-American English (AAE) as a cover term for Standard Afri-
can-American Englishes (SAAE) and for African-American vernacular Englishes
(AAVE), both of which are in turn the cover terms for the collections of standard
and non-standard varieties of AAE respectively. In doing this, I am making two
claims: (1) AAE comprises not one but a number of related standard and non-
standard varieties, and (2) varieties of AAE may have distinctively African-Ameri-
can traits while having none of the features widely agreed upon as being non-stan-
dard, e.g., the use of ain’t and multiple negatives within a sentence. The distinc-
tively African-American features of SAAE have to do primarily, but not solely, with
prosody and language use. See Spears (1988) for more discussion.

A similar position is expressed by Morgan (1998: 265, note 11):

I will use African-American English (AAE) to refer to the range of language varie-
ties used by people in the United States whose major socialization has been with
US residents of African descent. I will use American English (AE) to refer to the
general discussion of varieties that are not considered socially marked or marked
by class, region, gender, etc. (. . .) According to this definition, members of the
African-American community may speak either AE or AAE.

Bailey/Thomas (1998) may be interpreted to lend support to this position

with their observation that phonological features alone have proved to be
strong evidence for marking individuals as speaking a different variety. Lippi-
 Salikoko S. Mufwene

Green (1997a: 200) corroborates this in reporting that for non-Blacks, “non-
grammatical features’’ alone often mark an individual as an AAE speaker. She
also observes that according to the wider definition of AAE, “even when no
grammatical, phonological, or lexical features are used, a person can, in effect,
still be speaking AAVE by means of AVT [i.e., African verbal tradition] rhetori-
cal devices’’ (177–8).
Most of our practice in the study of AAE has, however, reflected the “nar-
row(er) definition,’’ capitalizing on grammatical features which make it the
most distinctive, at least quantitatively if not really qualitatively. The tendency
here has been to associate AAE, especially AAVE, with the lower strata of the
African-American community, with the less educated and the less affluent. But
this position does not seem to be the opinion of the lay persons in my pilot
survey. More than half of the African American respondents to question 12
(“According to you, what kinds of African Americans speak African-American
English?’’) in the survey think that “all kinds’’ of African Americans speak AAE,
regardless of level of education. Those who are more constrained by their pro-
fession or status still resort to it in some settings, although I suspect their
speech will not contain many of the basilectal features that have preoccupied
us linguists. Answers to questions 13 (“Do you make a distinction between
talking Black and sounding Black?’’) and 14 (Explain the difference.’’) suggest
that one may “talk Black’’ or speak AAE if they use words, phrases, and/or
discourse strategies that are considered typical of African Americans.
Although one cannot deny that a speaker’s profession and level of educa-
tion affect the kind of AAE they speak, answers to question 7 (“Please explain
how you think African-American English varies among its speakers.’’) reveal
that what is more real to the respondents is regional variation within the vari-
ety. We have come to assume so much homogeneity in AAE as an ethnolect
that we have not investigated how much, and in what respects, it varies region-
ally, despite Troike’s (1973) invitation that we look into this aspect of its sys-
tem. Unfortunately, the survey did not include questions that would shed light
on the kind of variation documented by, for instance, Bailey (1993), between
younger and older speakers, and between urban and rural speakers.
By the same token, information from the survey sheds new light on
the common observation that AAVE or plain AAE is spoken by 80–95% of the
African-American population. The estimates seem plausible as long as the
criteria used to identify a speech variety as AAE are not those assumed to date
by most linguists since most of what is considered AAE by our respondents
probably falls in the mesolectal range, which seems to be the norm, as in
 What is African American English? 

creole communities (Rickford 1990). It is perhaps not so accidental that lin-

guists’ preferred sources of data have been those African American teenagers
who participate in gang and street culture, whose speech is the most divergent
but are by no means not representative of the whole ethnic speech commu-
nity. The following observation by Rickford (1992: 190) bears significantly on
this discussion:
Black teenagers are less assimilationist [i.e., linguistically less accommodating to
the White middle-class norm] than their parents, and more assertive about their
rights to talk and act in their “natural way.’’ By contrast, Black adults, affected by
the demands of the workplace, seem to be impelled away from distinctively Black
patterns of language behavior.

Rickford’s observation does not, however, entail that such adult African
Americans stop speaking AAE altogether. They are just more capable of con-
cealing in some settings features they know to be stigmatized as well as of
avoiding features that would mark them too strongly as different, while they
continue speaking in ways that are still recognizably African American and
accepted as such within their community. Positions such as the following make
it perhaps unnecessary for us to insist too much on the basilectal end of the
continuum, especially if we should not continue to compare AAVE as an
ethnolect with “standard’’ English in order to determine how much restructur-
ing it reflects in its development. Thus Spears (1988) observes:
[a] major problem in trying to pinpoint who speaks Black Vernacular English [and
Gullah] is that, in reality, people speak [them] to varying degrees. Many use some
of the features included in the linguistic definition, but never all of them.

Tolliver-Weddington (1979: 364) had remarked earlier:

in reality Ebonics is spoken by a wide variation of Black Americans (both educated
and uneducated) and there is a wide variation in consistency and form (. . .) It is
unfortunate that a great amount of research on Ebonics involves adolescents and
urban dwellers because they are not completely representative of the vast geograph-
ical area of the United States. In reality, slang (. . .) and vulgarities are not observed
frequently in young children, adults, and elderly speakers, especially in smaller
cities.

Tolliver-Weddington (1979) and, later, Gilyard (1991: 118–19) address the

relevant problem of what is representative of AAVE. Is the best sample to be
attested in the speech of teenagers (Labov 1972), in street speech (Baugh 1983),
in Hip-Hop lyrics (Smitherman 1998a, 1998b), or in the home (Morgan 1998)?
According to Smitherman (1997: 29), the answer is:
 Salikoko S. Mufwene

Despite the recent near-hysteria about Black Language, street people, gangstas, or
baggy-pants-wearing teens are only some of the speakers of USEB. All kinds of
other folk speak U.S. Ebonics, like blue- and white-collar working adults, the con-
gregations of the churches, owners of barber-shops, beauty shops, and other small
businesses, our elders, young children, etc.

One gets some sense of the recognition of this range of varieties from
Baugh (1983) too, as he refers to the decrease of some non-standard features
in the speech of adults. Otherwise, there is no doubt that the more inclusive
conception of AAE that still excludes other English varieties of the Black
Diaspora is closer to the sentiments of lay African Americans. This is not neces-
sarily a denial that it is genetically related to these other varieties. However,
these genetic links need not lead us to lump them together as one and the same
language in ways that eclipse the obvious American-ness of AAVE and Gullah,
which their speakers consider important.

. Making sense of vernacular

One of the problems in our practice lies actually in how we interpret the term
vernacular, which has been so central in the scholarship on AAVE. I am more
familiar with the meaning of vernacular as the primary, native, or indigenous
language variety one speaks for day-to-day communication. This notion, which
is also present in some of the uses in Labov (1972), need not be associated pri-
marily with non-standard features, although one’s vernacular tends not to be
the “standard’’ variety, whose prototype (qua best exemplar) is definitely writ-
ten. African-Americans’ vernaculars vary from basilectal to colloquial varieties
close to the standard. This is again consistent with Spears’ conception of what
AAVE or AAE is, the kinds of texts that Morgan (1998) presents, and many
other primarily ethnological texts such as Dance (1978) and Gates (1988),
which are in varieties we should happily consider mesolectal and which differ
from other non-standard varieties of American English more by their discourse
strategies than by their structural features.
Contrary to the above observations, the term vernacular seems to have ac-
quired a slightly different, more technical meaning in studies of AAVE, which
is restricted to non-standard varieties. If one must interpret the title of Baugh’s
(1983) Black Street Speech literally, the term is associated with street culture.
This has led many linguists to illustrate AAVE with the language of ritual insults,
with Hip-Hop lyrics, and the like. Like Tolliver-Weddington (1979) and Gilyard
 What is African American English? 

(1991), one is led to wonder whether African Americans are typically vulgar. If
AAVE is street language, what is the home language of African Americans? If the
home language is different, what is it and why has AAVE putatively become the
vernacular of the African American youth instead of the home variety?
We should understand why, during the fury of the Ebonics debate follow-
ing the Oakland Unified School District’s resolutions in December 1996, even
some speakers of (near-) basilectal AAVE thought that Ebonics refers to a lan-
guage variety other than their own. A young man in a congregation to which
I was explaining the situation said in reference to Ebonics, perceived as the
speech of “the ignorant’’ and gang members, “Ain’t nobody here talk like that.’’
His focus may not have been so much on those features in his own statement
that make it obvious to a linguist that he speaks AAVE but on the kinds of
words and communicative exchanges which are contained in several examples
that linguists and the media have provided of what AAVE or Ebonics is. As
my survey also shows, words too, rather than phonological features alone, play
an important role in the lay person’s strategies of distinguishing AAE from
other English varieties. Witness some of the most common characterizations
of “talking Black’’:
1. using terms specific to AAE
2. “specific reference to Black cultural items’’
3. special way of pronouncing words and placing emphasis on syllables
4. using structural features of AAE
5. “conversating among family or other people talking about [what] happens
in the neighborhood’’

The above observations also make it clear that the reliability of estimates of
the proportion of African Americans who speak AAVE or AAE depends very
much on what one thinks the vernacular is. There are very large proportions of
African Americans whose day-to-day speech does not include the kinds of styles
used in ritual insults or Hip-Hop lyrics. There are many who are often con-
strained by their professions from using some of the non-standard features asso-
ciated with AAVE, even in their more relaxed modes of communication such as
in the privacy of their homes or in the intimate settings of their friends’ com-
pany. Yet all such individuals would be recognized as “talking Black’’ among
African Americans. Needless to observe that the proportion of AAVE speakers
according to linguists’ conception of the ethnolect would be much, much lower.
Several respondents to question 12 (“According to you, what kinds of
African Americans speak African-American English?’’) in my survey suggest a
 Salikoko S. Mufwene

notion of vernacular that is more inclusive, allowing a conception of AAVE that

still holds even when structural differences between their vernacular and some
European American vernaculars are minimal. In fact, the survey suggests that
many lay persons rank phonological and lexical features above anything else in
identifying the speech of African Americans as AAE. Note also that, with the
exception of unconjugated be, there are seldom imitations of AAE that are
based primarily on grammatical features which are also attested in other non-
standard varieties.
This state of affairs militates for what Lippi-Green (1997b) identifies as the
wider definition of AAE, consistent with the range of variation several linguists
have observed in it, starting with Labov’s (1972) characterization of it that does
not even leave Gullah out. We can thus articulate the distinction between
Gullah and AAVE as basically a regional one, within which other continua are
identifiable and associated, in part, with density of their respective basilectal
features — a position that seems consistent with Spears (1988, 1998). Notewor-
thy about this broad conception of AAE is the fact that several participants in
my survey (see responses to questions 7, 12, 15, 16) state that the variation is
not necessarily correlated with level of education, although schooling has had
the effect of reducing the density of basilectal features in the speech of many.

. The stigmatization of AAE

It is quite another matter whether the above suggestions will contribute to less
stigmatization of AAE. The reality is that the stigma is not on the vernacular
but on its speakers. The picture might change perhaps if we also increased the
proportion of studies that focus on European American non-standard vernacu-
lars, which may lead to more accurate comparisons which do not make AAE
look so uniquely peculiar. In the end, there will hopefully be a more balanced
view of language in North America according to which each ethnic group and
socio-economic class may be objectively identified with some peculiarities
which they may or may not share with some other groups and almost any
group in North America may finally be identified as having restructured Eng-
lish in its own way, which need not be unique in all respects (Mufwene 2000a).
Thank God, there are some studies in this direction already, such as the work
by Poplack and Tagliamonte (e.g., Poplack/Tagliamonte 1989) and by Wolfram
and his associates (e.g., Wolfram/Schilling-Estes 1998) over the past few years;
the work of Ellen Prince on Yiddish English; and a few others that can help us
 What is African American English? 

see both similarities and differences across ethnic groups. Even from a dia-
chronic point of view, I am glad to notice competition between substrate-ori-
ented and superstrate-oriented research. I suspect something more adequate
will come out of the exchange.

. Conclusions

There are really no conclusions other than the obvious. So far, we have done poor
jobs either in not reconciling some of our definitions of AAE with our analyses,
in overemphasizing extreme differences and disregarding similarities with other
English vernaculars, or in proposing definitions that ignore the sentiments of
native speakers. We might even be better off not even trying to define AAE and
just speaking of peculiarities observable among African Americans. There is
probably no way of defining AAE — if a language variety can be defined at all —
that does not reflect a particular bias, and this problem is true of any language
variety in the world. In fact, in order to conduct the kinds of analyses available
in the literature on AAE, it is not even necessary to characterize the ethnolect
otherwise than as ‘English as it is spoken by or among African Americans’.
My own justification for this vague characterization is that it enables us to
discuss peculiarities of verbal communication among African Americans even
if all we find in a discourse are instances of rhetorical strategies without struc-
tural features or just prosodic features without anything else. I doubt that Afri-
can Americans utilize just one rigid battery of structural features to identify a
person as speaking English in a manner that corresponds to their own. For the
purposes of group identity, I think that being able to recognize speech as Afri-
can American on the family resemblance model, based on a disjunction of
kinds of peculiarities, is more realistic than doing so on the basis of whether its
speaker has more or fewer specific non-standard features.

Appendix

This survey was conducted as a pilot study to determine whether it would be

feasible at low cost and informative enough to learn a few things that have
concerned me about AAE, such as, “How is it perceived by African Americans
versus non-African Americans?’’ and “What features do they use to distinguish
it from other American English varieties?’’ I also wanted to verify some of my
 Salikoko S. Mufwene

working assumptions about AAE. I am not sure how much I have learned in
this regard. However, it turned out that conducting the survey on a large scale
required the kind of funding I had no time to write a grant proposal for before
the Fall 1998 meeting at the University of Georgia nor the patience and skill to
process more meticulously than I have done here without resorting to new
mechanical techniques I should have trained myself in. The National Opinion
Research Center offered to help with coding and processing, provided I had
funding for the research.
As it is, the survey is defective in some ways. For instance, there are some
obvious sampling problems: There is a disproportionate number of women
versus men and of African Americans compared to Whites. I should have also
thought of a more rigorous way of tracking my mostly White linguistics stu-
dents who participated in the project and distinguishing them from those other
participants who have had a linguistics class but are not, or do not plan to be,
linguists. I kept track of several participants, especially African Americans, in
some ways, but not in the fine ways that a mechanical processing would keep
track of some individuals and more specific groups (e.g., African Americans
who do not believe there is such a thing as AAE but nonetheless think that
members of every “nationality’’ or ethnic group speak differently) or those who
state there is a difference between “talking Black’’ and “sounding Black.’’
Despite all these limitations, I have found what is presented below very
informative. The spontaneous commentaries are presented according to type
of answer, sometimes reproducing answers that are very similar, but avoiding
duplicating comments that are more or less the same. Numbers are provided
in bold to represent the proportions of respondents who answered questions
in specific ways. Perhaps there are some linguists who can make better use of
these responses or undertake the survey on a larger scale. Like me, most will
probably find that this Chicago-based survey is informative enough for the
purposes of the questions I address in this chapter. The abbreviations “AA,’’
“Af,’’ and “Wh’’ stand for African American, African, and White, respectively.

What is African-American English? A Survey

PART I
NAME:
PHONE NUMBER:
GENDER (check one):
Male 23; Female 40
 What is African American English? 

CITY:
Chicago 52, Brookfield (IL) 1, Schaunburg (IL) 1, Broadview (IL) 1, Ann
Arbor (MI) 1, East Orange (NJ) 1, Brooklyn (NY) 1, Philadelphia (PA) 1,
Sacramento (CA) 1, Security (CO) 2
How long have you lived here? ___ years
List other states in which you lived before:
California 3; Connecticut 1; New Jersey 6; New York 6; Wisconsin 2; Indi-
ana 3; Iowa 2; Michigan 2; Minnesota 4; Maryland 1; Oklahoma 1;
Wyoming 1; Washington 2; Pennsylvania 7; Massachusetts 2; Rhodes Is-
land, Illinois, Kansas 1; Texas 1; Alabama 1; Georgia 3; Kentucky 1; North
Carolina 3; South Carolina 2; Tennessee 2; Virginia 2; Washington, DC 3;
UK, Scotland, Germany, Italy 3; 12 have lived in Illinois only.
HIGHEST LEVEL OF EDUCATION (check one):
High School 10; College — BA/BS 12, No BA/BS 11; Graduate School —
MA/MS 15, Higher degree 14; None of the above 1
Have you ever had a linguistics class? (If you do not know what linguistics is,
check No and go to the next question.)
Yes 30; No 29; 3 did not check
AGE GROUP (check one):
under 14 yrs 1; under 18 years 0; under 30 yrs 32; under 40 yrs 17; under
50 yrs 6; under 60 yrs 3; under 70 yrs 1; 70 years and over 2.
OCCUPATION (If you are a student, write “student.’’ Otherwise, write what
kinds of jobs you have had, for instance, cashier, insurance broker, mili-
tary, teacher.):
student 20; post-doc 1; (English) teacher 7; University professor 3; attor-
ney/lawyer 2; Assistant Director 1; secretary 3; sales person 1; account ser-
vice 4; customer service 1; pharmacy technician 1; computer technician 1;
researcher 1; financial advisor 1; marine corps 1; police aid 1; tour guide 1;
telemarketing 1; assistant bibliographer 1; supervisor 1; public transporta-
tion employee 1; telephone operator 1
ARE YOU AMERICAN?
Yes 58; No 4; 1 checked both
Which of the following ethnic labels describes you the best?
American Indian or Alaskan Native 0; Asian or Pacific Islander 0; Black,
not of Hispanic origin 45; Hispanic, regardless of race 3 (If you also iden-
 Salikoko S. Mufwene

tify yourself as Black, check here too 0); White, not of Hispanic origin 15

If you are Black, check any of the following descriptions which apply to you:
born American 41; born in Africa 2; born in the Caribbean or the Bahamas
0; spoke French before immigrating to the USA 2; spoke English before
immigrating to the USA 0; spoke Créole before immigrating to the USA 0;
spoke Patois before immigrating to the USA 0

PART II
Please try to answer the questions in this part in the specific order in which they
are asked. Depending on how you answer some questions, you may have to skip
some of those that follow.
1. Do you think there is such a thing as African-American English or Black
English?
Yes 45 (GO TO 2) [All Whites responded this way]; No 18 (SKIP TO 3)
[All such respondents are African American and 1 Hispanic]
2. If your answer to question 1 is Yes, please explain what it is. (Assume you
are helping somebody who just arrived in the United States and has never
heard those terms.)
“A dialect of English spoken largely by Americans of African descent.’’
(Wh)
“The various dialects spoken by many, but not all, African Americans.’’
(Wh)
“The nonstandard variety of English spoken by Blacks — especially lower
class rural and urban Blacks.’’ (Wh)
“The variety of English prototypically associated with African Americans.’’
(Wh Hispanic)
“A type of English not easy to understand. It is spoken mostly by people of
Black skin or/and by other people living in areas where Black people
live.’’ (Wh/Jewish)
“A dialect of English mutually intelligible with standard and other
Englishes but with different ways of structuring sentences and some
different vocabulary.’’ (Wh)
“Dialect (ethnolect) of English used natively by many/most American (US)
Blacks.’’ (Wh linguist)
“Dialect of American English spoken by descendants of Africans brought
to the US as slaves.’’ (Wh)
 What is African American English? 

“It is an idealization — shorthand for features that occur in various types

(varieties) of nonstandard English spoken by African Americans.’’
(Wh linguist)
“Use of a combination of slang words and phrases and existing words with
a revised meaning.’’ (Wh)
“Slang used predominantly in African-American communities.’’ (Wh)
“A different style of English where some words do not have the same
meaning as dictionary English.’’ (AA)
“English seasoned with a unique lexicon associated with the culture and
geography of the African Diaspora.’’ (AA)
“The speech pattern found predominantly among African Americans that
deviates from the so-called ‘standard English’ spoken by members of
mainstream America.’’ (AA)
“It is primarily a way of speaking that involves the creation of new words,
or giving new meanings to existing words.’’ (AA)
“An informal and formal way that Blacks speak to one another. It encom-
passes ‘standard’ American English and a vernacular which years of
oppression have caused.’’ (AA)
“A unique form of American English informed by West African
retentions.’’ (AA)
“A language that was spoken by slaves who were not given the opportunity
to learn English that is grammatically correct. The English was passed
down to their descendants.’’ (AA)
“The language that most African Americans speak — specifically when
communicating with one another.’’ (AA)
“It is a combination of English and derivatives of African languages.’’ (AA)
“Black English consists of words that are indigenous to the African-Ameri-
can community.’’ (AA)
“It is sort of like a dialect (. . .) Predictable ways of speaking that do not
comport with standard grammatical rules.’’ (AA)
“Slang used amongst Blacks in their communities.’’ (AA)
“Ebonics [is] speaking lazy.’’ (AA)
“The language spoken by African Americans at home and on the street
especially among themselves. It is very much related to English but it
has its own grammatical/structural rules.’’ (AA)
“Phrases used by African Americans.’’ (AA)
“African-American English is a language with its own structure, semantics,
 Salikoko S. Mufwene

and style which is primarily oral. It has a rich history traced through
the migration of Africans to the Americas and the Caribbean.’’
(AA teacher, took classes on AAVE)
“It is a sub-cultural form of spoken formal English that reflects a commu-
nity-specific alternative communication form.’’ (AA, related to teacher
above)
“Black language is a broken variation of English. The enunciation of some
words are different than English. Many words in English have different
meanings in the Black English version.’’ (AA)
“Spoken mostly by African-American youth.’’ (AA)
“All nationality have their own dialect.’’ (AA teacher)
“Intercultural language that expresses your experiences, or the experience
of a subcultural.’’ (AA)
3. Have you ever heard the term Ebonics?
Yes ALL (GO TO 4); No 0 (SKIP TO 6)
4. Does the term Ebonics mean the same thing to you as the terms Black Eng-
lish or African-American English?
Yes 25 (SKIP TO 6); No 14 Wh; 1 Af; 23 AA (GO TO 5)
5. What does the term Ebonics mean to you? Please say how different you
think it is from the term African-American English.
“Ebonics refers to the incorrect, slang pronunciation of English words.’’
(Wh)
“Ebonics is more clearly defined as a language than AAE.’’ (Wh)
“Institutionalized form of AAE.’’ (Wh)
“Just a silly word for AAE.’’ (Wh)
“A politically charged term for AAE. By saying Ebonics one is self-identify-
ing with either (1) a Black-oriented, partly separatist and highly vocal
minority, or (2) an upper-middle-class, liberal patronizing mentality
(if the speaker is ).’’ (Wh graduate student)
“Ebonics seems political; AAE does not.’’ (2 Whs)
“I see Ebonics as more descriptive, and AAE as something closer to
colloquial English.’’ (Wh)
“A form of AAE spoken by a poorly educated individual.’’ (AA)
“Ebonics is a socially constructed term created by politicians or other
groups or other groups of people who have a vested interest in the fail-
ure of Black people in this country, whereas AAE [is] a term created by
academics in order to attempt to have a better understanding of the
linguistic history of people of African descent in this country.’’ (AA)
 What is African American English? 

“Ebonics for me is the old English used during the 1800’s and 1900’s. It is
what many would refer to as slave talk. It is different from AAE because
slang is not used as frequently.’’ (AA)
“Ebonics [is] to me slang used by some individuals who may or may not
have a grasp of correct English.’’ (AA)
“Ebonics means Improper English.’’ (AA)
“[Ebonics] is different from AAE (or should be) because it does not convey
the same kind of relationship to English (or an adapted form).’’ (AA)
“Ebonics means that there is a specific uniformity or pattern to the gram-
matically incorrect language spoken by some disadvantaged African
Americans. This pattern has a cultural and historical base. Ebonics is
part of Black English, but the two are not interchangeable because of
the additional meaning of Black English.’’ (AA)
“Ebonics is considered to be a language in its own right that has syntactical
and/or cultural roots in West African languages, while AAE is con-
ceived as being a dialect of the English language (even though this term
can also encompass the idea of the West African influence.’’ (AA with
a BA and has had a class in linguistics)
“Ebonics is ghetto talk.’’ (AA)
“Ebonics is speaking non-standard English.’’ (AA)
“Ebonics is a term intended to demean Blacks.’’
“Ebonics mean[s] absolutely nothing to me . . . [it] is an insult to African
Americans.’’
“I think of [AAE] as words being run together and chopped off.’’
6. If your answer to question 1 is Yes, is there only one way of speaking
African-American English?
Yes 4 including the teenager (SKIP TO 8) — some respondents ignored the
condition; No 47 (GO TO 7, THEN 8); 14 skipped the question
7. Please explain how you think African-American English varies among its
speakers.
according to region 33; according to social background 7; according to level
of education 7; according to age 5; urban vs. rural 4; socio-economic class
4; according to context of speech event 4; time/history 1; according to
neighborhood 1; varies but no parameters made explicit 1; very much like
other groups 1; standard vs. non-standard 1; “English; varies along with
nationality’’ 1 AA; It does not. The only criterion is ethnicity 2; No answer
11; vocabulary, phonology, especially tone/intonation 2; More or fewer
features 1
 Salikoko S. Mufwene

8. Can one speak African-American English badly?

Yes 41 (GO TO 9, THEN 11, AND CONTINUE.); No 15 (SKIP TO 10);
Don’t know 1; No answer 6
9. Can you explain how one can speak bad African-American English? Or can
you give an example?
(non-fluent) non-native speech 9; speech not consistent with rules of AAE
4; misusing words 3 (Wh); film-makers/comedians 3; bad prosodic features
2; (negative) stereotypical imitation 5; bad mix of bad English and AAE 1;
“the same way you can speak standard English badly’’ 1; when one is not
understood by native speakers of AAE while trying to speak it 2; “*He be
stubborn now/today’’ (Wh linguist); “*I be late for my meeting today’’ (Wh
linguistics student); “*What is he name?’’ (AA, high-school level of educa-
tion); “repetition of phrases such as you know, you know or by using etc.,
etc.’’; “One can speak bad English, period’’ 1 (AA); “The inability to articu-
late one’s thoughts’’ 1 (Wh); “I view African-American English the same
as standard English’’ 1 (AA); No answer 20
10. Do you think that African-American English is already bad English?
Yes 6 (5 AA, 1 Wh) (GO TO 11, AND CONTINUE); No 38 (GO TO 11,
AND CONTINUE); Not sure 2; No answer 17
11. Do you think there are degrees of bad African-American English?
Yes 34; No 18; Not sure 2; No answer 7; “there are degrees of bad English,
period’’ (same AA as for question 9); “the entire theory of AAE is bad
teaching’’ 1 (AA)
12. According to you, what kinds of African Americans speak African-
American English?
Every kind/All (kinds of) AAs 20 (mostly AA); AAs raised in an AA com-
munity 5 (mostly AA); Most AAs 4 (mostly AA); AAs who have been ex-
posed to AAE 4 (AA); “those who identify with their culture’’ 1 AA; Those
who live in the ghetto 1; “Almost all of them’’ 1 (Wh); All but college-
degreed ones are less likely 1; “those who are poorly educated’’ 3 (2 AAs
and 1 Wh); “those who do not belong to the educated middle class’’ 1 (Wh
linguist); “usually uneducated or lower class African Americans’’ 1 (Wh
linguistics student); “those from urban areas, usually lower socio-economic
backgrounds’’ 1 (Wh linguistics student); Those who do not interact with
people outside their community 1; People who are not taught grammatical
English 1; There is no such thing as AAE 1; “people that speaks (sic) bad
English speaks (sic) bad AAE’’ 1 (AA college student); “Those who use
slang’’ 2 (AA); “Well-educated African American’’ 2 (AA); “Unknown/
 What is African American English? 

None/No such thing’’ 3 (AA); One irrelevant answer 1; No answer 7

13. Do you make a distinction between talking Black and sounding Black?
Yes 30 (GO TO 14, AND CONTINUE); No 28 (SKIP TO 17); No answer
2; Not sure 3
14. Explain the difference:
talking Black means:
using terms specific to AAE; “specific reference to Black cultural items’’;
speaking AAE, incorporating slang terms; special way of pronouncing
words and placing emphasis on syllables; using structural features of AAE;
“using slang’’; “conversating among family or other people talking about
[what] happens in the neighborhood’’; “suggests a certain degree of foreign
to the spoken form’’*
sounding Black means:
“tones and rhythm in the voice’’; “even someone who speaks standard Eng-
lish can sound Black’’; sounding like a Black person; speaking AAE “with-
out sounding mechanical’’; “phonology and rhythm of AAE’’; speaking in
such a way that the speaker is not accused of sounding ; “like Dr. King and
Jesse Jackson’’; “Pretty much anyone with a strong southern American
accent sounds Black to me’’ 1 (Wh); “native speaker of the form’’*
15. Do you in any way relate the difference between talking Black and sounding
Black to level of education?
Yes 11 (GO TO 16, THEN 17); No 30 (SKIP TO 17); No answer 22
16. If your answer to question 15 is Yes, explain the correlation.
“Sometimes educated Blacks will sound Black even if they are not familiar
with Black English to fit in the group.’’
“Talking Black is negatively correlated with high level of education. Sound-
ing Black is correlated with living around Black people and hearing the
way certain words, letters, syllables are pronounced. It’s similar to hav-
ing a regional accent.’’
“There can be a correlation with usage of Black English and education. It
varies. Some African Americans, even those nurtured in urban Black
culture, have received so much education that it results in their being
‘away from the hood’. They are not aware of contemporary/pop word
usage.’’
“Most highly educated Blacks do not talk Black . . . they may have to, or try
to, sound Black.’’
“Sounding Black is not really something that is learned on the speaker’s
side, just the perceptions of the listener.’’
 Salikoko S. Mufwene

“Native AAE speakers sometimes keep an AAE ‘accent’ when speaking

standard English.’’
Sounding Black corresponds to “not having a full grasp of standard Eng-
lish.’’
“Those that are educated do not necessarily use Ebonics unless they are
around certain people.’’

Notes

. In this essay, I use the term African American English, as in Mufwene (in press), to also
include Gullah, in contradistinction with African American Vernacular English (AAVE),
which excludes this “creole’’ (see below) of coastal South Carolina and Georgia. In the
discussion that follows, I argue that AAE can be used to cover more African American
English varieties that have been excluded from the typical usage of AAVE in the linguis-
tics literature.
. The processed survey, which I discuss only partially, is appended to this essay. I am grate-
ful to Steven Ingels of the National Opinion Research Center, to Guy Bailey, and to Sali
Tagliamonte for their assistance in the design of the questionnaire. Although about half
of the 63 respondents have had a linguistics class, no more than 15 of them are linguistics
students.
. The following definitions of Cockney and Japanese from the Random House Webster’s
electronic dictionary are indirectly informative:
Cockney: a member of the native-born working-class population of London, England,
especially an inhabitant of the East End district. 2. the speech of this population, typifying
the broadest form of local London dialect.
Japanese: 1. a native or inhabitant of Japan. 2. a member of a people constituting the
overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of Japan and the Ryukyu Islands. 3. language
of these people, affiliated by some with the Altaic languages.
The definitions suggest that English, a term used also for “the inhabitants of England,’’
must have been thought of at some point in time as ‘the language of the English people’,
before its spread around the world. One could also define it today as ‘originally the lan-
guage of the English people, which has now spread to several former English and British
colonies’. Although it is now spoken in more territories than these, it may still be defined
in association with them.
. In all these words, ki- is the instrumental prefix (of noun class 7) in Bantu languages
which is also used for the language of a people, while ba- (noun class 2) is the plural
prefix for humans. The corresponding singular prefix is mu- (often reduced to a syllabic
m in KiSwahili).
 What is African American English? 

. Despite the long-standing debate in the literature about how to refer to the English variet-
ies spoken by or among African Americans, note that, on average, members of this ethnic
group have no name for it. For them, they speak English, though admittedly in different
ways from other Americans, as is evident from some answers in my survey. For instance,
a teacher who denies there is such a thing as AAE observes that “All nationality have their
own dialect’’ (question 2). Such attitudes to AAE, both by those who speak it and by
those who do not, are, in fact, consistent with African Americans being American but
different from other Americans in various other cultural ways.
. There is apparently no evidence of such attempts in the 17th century, though there is
evidence of racial discrimination and negative attitudes towards Africans since the time
they first set foot in North America. The state of affairs suggests that, barring cases of
interlanguage, the socio-economic ecology of the 17th century did not foster the emer-
gence of distinctive African (American) English varieties (Mufwene 2000).
. It could also be that different polities direct attention to different groups. In the United
Kingdom, for instance, the increasing volume of publications on Irish English, a more
recent variety, is impressive compared to the scarcity of literature on Cockney or the
Yorkshire vernacular. Overall, there has been much more scholarly literature and ama-
teur comments on new English varieties spoken by descendants of non-Europeans than
on those spoken by descendants of Europeans. Much of the literature responds to
variable degrees of marginalization, hence stigmatization, (of the speech) of some
groups.
. I do not, however, share the presupposition of this observation, viz., that any lan-
guage variety can be exactly defined otherwise than by associating it with a group of
speakers. I know of no such fuss over definitions of vernaculars other than AAVE and
creoles.
. This position does not entail that lay persons do not use, nor pay attention to, particular
structural features at all in identifying particular vernaculars. The position simply is that
those features do not have a defining status, they may not apply exclusively to the rele-
vant vernaculars, and their significance may vary from one person to another. For in-
stance, in identifying a particular speech sample as African American, one may pay no
attention to any of the grammatical features that linguists have discussed the most and
may rely on some other features, such as prosody and discourse strategies, whose role in
the identification of AAE has generally been ignored to date.
. Despite its great merits, McWhorter’s position has its own shortcomings, on which I will
not dwell but wish to note here. For instance, the extent of structural differences be-
tween standard English and AAVE is an open question. Mutual intelligibility is not
determined by grammatical differences alone, nor by structural features alone for that
matter. I doubt that “slang’’ is part of standard English, but addressing the question of
what standard English is would be tantamount to opening another can of worms now.
However, I’d like to interpret his position more sympathetically to make obvious other
issues which we should understand in our attempts to determine what is, and/or what
is not, AAE.
 Salikoko S. Mufwene

. Incidentally, Bahamian English bears significant influence from plantation English taken
over to the Bahamas by coastal southeastern planters and their slaves who emigrated from
the United States after the Civil War (1861–65) (see Holm 1998).
. Interesting exceptions to this practice in linguistic analyses since the late 1960s include
Wolfram (1974), the work of Edgar Schneider since the late 1980s (e.g., Schneider 1989),
and the work of Shana Poplack and Sali Tagliamonte since the late 1980s (e.g., Poplack/
Tagliamonte 1989).
. Bailey (1993) is more explicit about it, favoring an inclusive conception of AAVE which
is “ground[ed] within its cultural context’’ (289) and recognizes “sub-varieties such as
Black folk speech [spoken by older adults and in rural areas] and Black street speech’’
associated with the youth in the urban environment (313).
. The comments in question 14 come almost exclusively from African Americans. Even
some of those who believe there is no such thing as AAE provided similar comments.
. I processed the survey in such a way that it is not possible to track individual respondents
for all questions and see how their answers correlate with each other. Much more may
be learned from it beyond ethnic lines in some answers.
. Some linguists may be concerned by the fact that the much professed differences between
AAVE and other dialects of English may have to be established more on the basis of
phonological features and discourse strategies, at least qualitatively, than on the basis of
morphosyntax. We should, however, also remember that sentiments that another group
speaks differently may well be based on a small set of features that are made significant
more by social attitudes toward the speakers than on actual barriers to mutual intelligibil-
ity, at least at the level of literal interpretation of forms and constructions. Labov (1998)
does a great job of demonstrating that, despite its structural peculiarities, including “cam-
ouflaged’’ constructions (see Spears 1998 for examples), AAVE shares much of its gram-
mar with other dialects of English.
. Bailey (1993) observes that AAVE has now become more of an urban variety than a pre-
dominantly rural phenomenon (which it was up to the early 20th century) and that the
urban variety sets up the norm emulated by the rural youth. I am not sure that this ob-
servation applies to Gullah, which is very much rural and has not been affected by the
development of vacation resorts in the area (Mufwene 1994).
. Baugh seems influenced by Labov (1972), who also associates AAVE, then called BEV,
with “street culture of the inner cities’’ (xiii) or “vernacular culture’’ (xiv), and states that
“the most consistent vernacular is spoken by those between the ages of 9 and 18 (257; the
age bracket is a change from the ages of 8 and 19 given on p. xiii). He presents the
“lames’’ as outsiders to that street culture and, therefore, not possessing the best represen-
tations of AAVE.
. Hoffman (1998: 82) also observes that “Most laypeople focus on slang during Ebonics
debates.’’
 What is African American English? 

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1991. Verb Phrase Patterns in Black English and Creole. Detroit: Wayne State University
Press, 60–100.
—— & Natalie Schilling-Estes. 1998. Dialect Change and Maintenance on the Outer Banks.
Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
 Chapter 3

The relationship between African American

and White Vernaculars
in the American South
A sociocultural history and some phonological
evidence
×

Guy Bailey
University of Texas at San Antonio

. Some perspectives on Black–White speech relationships

In spite of more than a century of scholarship on the relationship between

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and the varieties of English spo-
ken by Whites, that relationship, or more accurately, those relationships are still
not well understood. The absence of a clear consensus on Black-White speech
relationships is a consequence of several things, among them:
1. the larger political contexts in which views about these relationships have
been expressed;
2. the early tendency to compare AAVE to Northern White vernaculars or a
hypothetical standard English, an approach that conflated regional and
ethnic differences and failed to account for the sociohistorical context in
which AAVE emerged;
3. the lack of data from comparable groups of African Americans and Whites;
and
4. the failure to recognize that Black-White speech relationships are evolving
rather than static.
As Table 1 suggests, these factors have led to a wide range of views on the
relationship between AAVE and White vernaculars (views so different that it
is almost as if the adherents were not talking about the same pair of vernacu-
lars) and have led to some of the bitterest polemics in the field of linguistics.
Table 1. Some positions on the relationship between AAVE and White vernaculars 
Position Date position Relationship between Putative reason for Evidence used to Sources of data Proponents of
Guy Bailey

emerged AAVE & WVE relationship establish position position*

Deficit 19th century AAVE different from “Genetic inferiority’’ “Non-standard’’ Informal Non-linguists,
WVE because it is of African Americans features that differ observation; educators,
linguistically deficient or deprived social from White speech performance on Bereiter,
environment standardized Engelmann
tests
Anglicist mid 20th AAVE identical to WVE African Americans Lexical similarities, Linguistic atlas Dialect
century of similar social class in learned regional incidental surveys; mostly geographers,
same locale dialects of English phonological & elderly rural philologists,
spoken by Whites, morphological informants Krapp,
esp. overseers features Williamson
Creolist 1960s AAVE different from AAVE descended Morphosyntactic Literary works; Creolists,
WVE but becoming from a prior creole features such as Ø interviews with sociolinguists,
more like them but has been copula; phonological children & teens B. Bailey, Stewart
decreolizing ones like CC deletion
Ebonics 1970s Ebonics, the language AAVE has its roots Putative parallels with Draws on R. Williams,
of Black Americans, is in African language West African & Niger- existing research; E. Smith
a separate language structures Congo languages intuitions
Divergence 1980s AAVE’s origins unclear Formation of new Innovative Sociolinguistic Sociolinguists,
but it is becoming more speech communities grammatical forms; interviews with Labov, Myhill,
unlike WVE in process of sound changes in wide age range G. Bailey,
urbanization White speech Maynor
*Note that not all members of a given category advocate the position associated with their category in this table — e.g., not all educators advocated the deficit
position nor all sociolinguists the divergence position. Note also that most researchers hold more carefully nuanced positions than the table suggests: the table
sacrifices nuance for summation.
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

Until the last quarter of the 20th century, AAVE was frequently seen simply
as a deficient form of White speech, not only by non-academics whose motives
were clearly racist, but also by some educators and psychologists whose motives
were increased educational success for African Americans. The latter groups
argued that certain features of AAVE (e.g., zero copula, as in “She always
comin’ in our house,’’ and the absence of tense markers, as in “I work[ed] in
Houston twenty years’’) make that variety logically inferior. As a result, they
argued, the variety itself was a barrier to educational success.
Working within a context in which differences between AAVE and White
vernaculars were often taken as evidence of the inferiority of AAVE, dialect
geographers and philologists, beginning around the middle of the 20th century,
began to emphasize the many similarities between Black and White speech.
Focusing on the folk lexicon (e.g., synonyms for burlap bag such as croker sack
and tow sack or folk terms for peanuts such as pinders and goobers) and on pho-
nological features such as the loss of constriction in postvocalic and syllabic /r/
(e.g., four is pronounced either [foə] or [foυ] and word is pronounced [wd]),
these linguists argued that the speech of African Americans exhibits the same
range of regional and local variation as comparable White speech does. The
differences that do exist are primarily ones of frequency of occurrence (Kurath
1949; Atwood 1953). For example, in the Lower South, both African Americans
and Whites were historically “r-less,’’ but r-lessness always was and still is more
widespread in African American speech, and it encompasses environments
(including intervocalic ones in which a word like barrel becomes [bæə]) where
r-lessness was always rare in White speech (see Lambert 1995). Thus, while the
same range of variants of postvocalic and syllabic /r/ occur in AAVE and South-
ern White vernaculars (SWV), their scope and frequency of occurrence differ.
In sharp contrast to this “Anglicist’’ position, the Creolist position, which
emerged in the 1960s and continues to be advocated vigorously, focuses on
differences between AAVE and White vernaculars and on similarities between
AAVE and Caribbean creole languages (e.g., on features such as zero copula).
Creolists hypothesize that these similarities are vestiges of a prior creole from
which AAVE descended. AAVE and White vernaculars differ because they have
different histories, and the many similarities that do exist between the two are
primarily a consequence of the “decreolization’’ of AAVE and its movement
toward “standard’’ English over time.
Proponents of the Ebonics position put an even greater emphasis on the
differences between AAVE and White vernaculars and, like creolists, they view
them as a reflection of different histories. Unlike many creolists, however, some
 Guy Bailey

Ebonicists argue that AAVE is a separate language altogether with roots in West
African and Niger Congo languages: to call AAVE a variety of English is a typo-
logical misclassification. The Ebonicist position, of course, has clear educational
and political implications. If AAVE is a separate language and not a variety of
English, then (1) methods for teaching English as a second language are appro-
priate for its speakers and (2) schools that engage in these activities are deserving
of the kinds of funding that is set aside for second language instruction.
In spite of their differences and the bitter polemics that have often accom-
panied those differences, Anglicists, Creolists, Ebonicists and other linguists
have been united in their rejection of the deficit position. Few scholars would
now argue that AAVE is illogical, linguistically deficient, or in any other way
inadequate. In fact, most would agree that there is no problem with AAVE
itself; the only problem is the attitudes of the larger society toward it. The
persistent and generally successful attack on the deficit position is one of the
great achievements of research on AAVE over the last thirty years. During that
time, the polemics that marked early research gradually began to subside and
researchers began to develop more carefully nuanced positions as sociolinguists
(e.g., Labov, Fasold, and Wolfram) brought new data to bear on AAVE, as a
new generation of creolists (e.g., Rickford and Hancock) began to explore the
complexities of creolization and decreolization processes, and as African Amer-
ican scholars (e.g., Baugh and Smitherman) provided perspectives and data
from within the community. As a result, by 1982 Labov was able to outline a
broad consensus that was emerging on the relationship between AAVE and
White vernaculars. Four generalizations formed the basis for this consensus:
1. [AAVE] is a subsystem of English with a distinct set of phonological and
syntactic rules that are now aligned in many ways with the rules of other
dialects.
2. It incorporates many features of Southern [White] phonology, morphol-
ogy, and syntax; Blacks in turn have exerted influence on the dialects of
Southern Whites where they lived.
3. It shows evidence of derivation from an earlier Creole that was closer to the
present-day Creoles of the Caribbean.
4. It has a highly developed aspect system, quite different from other dialects
of English, which shows a continuing development of its semantic structure
(Labov 1982: 192).
The consensus was short-lived, however. By the mid-1980s the emergence of
the “divergence hypothesis’’ and of new sources of evidence on 19th-century
AAVE splintered much of the consensus that had developed.
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

The divergence hypothesis holds that, regardless of its origin, AAVE and
White vernaculars were at one time more alike than they are now and that over
the last half century they have become increasingly different. Two develop-
ments provided the impetus for this hypothesis. First, scholars began to explore
the speech of older, rural, Southern African Americans. Although the vast ma-
jority of African Americans lived in the rural South well into the 20th century,
until the 1980s most research on AAVE was conducted in cities, especially
Northern cities — the places where most sociolinguists and creolists worked
and the places that served as the destination for many African Americans who
left the rural South during the “Great Migration.’’ In an attempt to determine
what AAVE was like before the Great Migration and to explore the ancestral
roots of urban AAVE, the work of Bailey, Maynor, and Cukor-Avila examined
the speech of elderly African Americans in the rural South. Previous work,
even in the South, had focused largely on the speech of children and teenagers
(see, for example, Dunlap 1974 and Wolfram 1974). Second, researchers began
to expand the range of linguistic features they examined. In particular, Labov
and his research team in Philadelphia focused on the use of vowel space (i.e.,
on patterns of vowel rotation) to develop new ways of characterizing dialect
differences. Labov found that African Americans participate in none of the
evolving patterns of vowel rotations he identified in White speech (Labov
1991), while Bailey, Maynor, and Cukor-Avila found that some of the gram-
matical features (e.g., habitual be, as in “we be goin’ to bingo [every week]’’)
that are most frequently discussed in studies of Northern urban AAVE are rare
in the speech of Southern African Americans born before World War II and are
virtually non-existent in the speech of those born before 1900.
Although the issues raised by the divergence hypothesis are still not com-
pletely resolved, the hypothesis highlights the need for new sources of data,
especially sources that push our knowledge of AAVE back in time and provide
evidence from comparable Whites at different points in time. It also highlights
the fact that the relationships between AAVE and White vernaculars are fluid
and evolving and are, to some extent, reflexes of the sociohistorical contexts in
which these vernaculars have developed. An understanding of Black-White
speech relationships requires a clear understanding of those contexts.

. Sociohistorical contexts

While much of the research on AAVE has focused on its use in inner cities after
World War II, until the second quarter of the 20th century the vast majority of
 Guy Bailey

African Americans lived in the rural South. In 1910, for instance, 89% were
in the South and more than 75% were in rural areas — that is, in communities
with populations less than 2500. More recent work has focused on the colonial
South — the period when, according to many linguists, AAVE must have
emerged.
Although the first slaves were brought to Jamestown in 1619 and from that
time until the American Revolution the number of slaves imported increased
steadily, in 1790 large-scale slavery was limited to the tobacco country of Vir-
ginia, Maryland, North Carolina, central Kentucky, central Tennessee, and to
the areas along the South Carolina/Georgia coast where rice and indigo could
be grown. In fact, in the absence of a viable cash crop that could be grown
elsewhere, these areas represented the geographic limits of slavery as a large-
scale economic system in 1790 and established two distinct patterns of Black-
White speech relationships, the reflexes of which are still apparent in insular
areas along the East Coast today. The colonial demographics of Virginia, North
Carolina, and Maryland suggest that sociohistorical conditions in the Upper
South probably did not favor the development of a full-scale creole language.
A demographic context in which Whites comprised a majority of the popula-
tion throughout the colonial period and in which tobacco favored relatively
small plantations and slave holdings argues for a sociolinguistic situation in
which African Americans would have, for the most part, assimilated local
White speech. Such a situation, though, would not preclude either the preser-
vation of some creole elements that might have been brought by slaves im-
ported from the Caribbean or the emergence of features that might have devel-
oped through imperfect second language learning (Winford 1998). Recent
research both on the speech of insular, elderly African Americans and Whites
in Hyde County, North Carolina (Wolfram/Thomas/Green 1997) and on early
AAVE vowel systems (Bailey/Thomas 1998a) provides support for this sce-
nario. Along the South Carolina/Georgia coast, large slave holdings and sub-
stantial African American majorities led to the creation of a very different
pattern of Black-White interaction. The consequence of this pattern was a
creole language — Gullah.
Relatively little work has focused on AAVE as it evolved in the rural South
between 1790 and 1945, but a careful examination of African American history
and the available linguistic evidence suggests that this 150-year period may be
crucial both in the emergence of AAVE and also in the development of Black-
White speech relationships. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 led to the
creation of a third pattern of interaction among African Americans and Whites.
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

The growth of slavery in the United States

120
slaves imported (× 1000)
Approximate number of

100

80

60

40

20

0
1620–30
1630–40
1640–50
1650–60
1660–70
1670–80
1680–90
1690–00
1700–10
1710–20
1720–30
1730–40
1740–50
1750–60
1760–70
1770–80
1780–90
1790–00
1800–10
1810–20
1820–30
1830–40
1840–50
1850–60
Figure 1. Importation of slaves into the US by decade (source: Homberger 1995)

The cotton gin made short-staple cotton a viable cash crop and plantation agri-
culture a plausible economic system for much of the area south of an isoline
delimiting the 210-day growing season from the South Carolina Piedmont to
the Brazos River valley in Texas. As a result, it radically altered the geographic
limits of slavery, provided the impetus for a dramatic increase in both the for-
eign and the domestic slave trade, and ultimately created a social context for
Black-White speech relationships that endured the Civil War and was altered
only by World War II and the break-up of the farm tenancy system. Figures
1–4 and Table 2 illustrate the impact of short-staple cotton. As Figure 1 shows,
the period from 1790 to 1810 comprised the two most active decades for the
foreign slave trade, in spite of the fact that this trade was made illegal in 1808.
Outlawing the foreign slave trade did not halt it, though — as many slaves were
imported in the fifty years after 1810 as in the 110 years before 1730. Most of
the quarter of a million slaves imported between 1790 and 1860 went to the
newly-settled cotton lands in the interior South, as Figures 2–4 suggest. This
forced immigration was accompanied by an explosive growth in the domestic
slave trade. As many as 1,000,000 slaves were moved from the East Coast to the
cotton lands of the interior South between 1790 and 1860 and, while the major-
ity of these came from the Upper South, many also came from the South Caro-
lina/Georgia coast.
 Guy Bailey

Slave population 1790

Each dot represents 2,000 slaves

1790

Percent
70
50
30
10

0 50 100 150 200 0 50 100 150 200

Miles Miles

Figure 2. Distribution of slaves as a percentage of the total population in 1790

(source: Hilliard 1984)

The large numbers of African Americans imported into the newly settled
cotton lands in the interior South, then, came from three different sources: (1)
the foreign slave trade, which would have included some slaves imported from
the Caribbean but more imported directly from Africa; (2) the large plantations
of the South Carolina/Georgia coast, where Gullah was spoken; and (3) the
smaller plantations of the Upper South, where most slaves probably used vari-
eties of English more like those of local Whites. This demographic mixture
created a context of language contact among African Americans in the interior
South which would have included, in proportions that must have varied from
place to place, some version of AAVE, Gullah and other creole languages, Afri-
can languages, and the dialects of English used by local Whites. Moreover, as
Figure 4 shows, in parts of the interior South (for instance, the Mississippi
Delta, the Alabama Black Belt, and the lower Brazos Valley in Texas), the ratios
of African Americans to Whites were as great as those along the South Caro-
lina/Georgia coast, the area where similar ratios led to the development of
Gullah. The plantations were often as large too (see Gray 1933). Given the fact
that a substantial portion of slaves coming into most of these areas spoke some
form of English, we would hardly expect the development of a full-scale creole
language, but we might well expect a variety of English showing the clear im-
print of the creole and African languages that formed part of the matrix from
which it derived. According to Bailey/Thomas (1998a), that is precisely what
we find in the early varieties of AAVE in the interior South.
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

Slave population 1830

Each dot represents 2,000 slaves

0 50 100 150 200

Miles

Slaves as percentage
of total population, 1830

Percent
70
50
30
10
No data
0 50 100 150 200
Miles

Figure 3. Distribution of slaves as a percentage of the total population in 1730

(source: Hilliard 1984)
 Guy Bailey

Slave population 1860

Each dot represents 2,000 slaves

0 50 100 150 200

Miles

Slaves as percentage
of total population, 1860

Percent
70
50
30
10

0 50 100 150 200

No data
Miles

Figure 4. Distribution of slaves as a percentage of the total population in 1860

(source: Hilliard 1984)
Table 2. The expansion of the cotton kingdom in the American South
Date Cotton New cotton Acreage Price of cotton No. of slaves No. of African Price of slaves % urban % tenant
production lands harvested (¢/lb.) imported Americans (in $) So. pop. farmers
(# of bales)
1790 3000 WGA, LA — 37** 50,000 *** 757,000 ~250 2 —
1810 177,824 MS, AL, TN — 15 190,000 1,377,000 900 4 —
1830 732,218 AK, eTX — 8 20,000 2,329,000 1200 6 —
1860 3,841,416 cTx — 11 30,000 4,201,000 1800 9 —
1880 6,606,000 ## 15,921,000 10 — 6,581,000 — 12 36.2
1900 10,124,000 OK 24,886,000 9 — 8,834,000 — 18 47.0
1930 13,932,000 wTX 42,444,000 9 — 11,891,000 — 32 55.5
# before 1950, urban areas were defined as incorporated places with cotton gin made short-staple cotton, the variety that would grow in the
populations of more than 2500; ** figures for 1795; *** figure from interior South, a profitable crop and, thus, fueled both the expansion
1780–90; ## after 1875 cotton production expanded into NC and of the slave trade and the rapid acquisition of Native American lands
southern VA and into marginal agricultural areas of the South. from central Georgia to central Texas between 1790 and 1850.
5. Although the cotton prices listed above accurately depict the overall
Notes: downward trend in prices, they do not show the wild fluctuations that
1. The first slaves (20) were brought to Jamestown in 1619, but more occurred. For instance, in 1815 cotton prices rose to 35 cents per
than half of those imported into the U. S. came after 1780. pound, and though they fell to nine cents in 1830, by 1835 they had
2. Even after the foreign slave trade was outlawed, an illegal slave trade risen again to 17 cents per pound. During the Civil War, prices stood
flourished from 1808–60. According to W.E.B. Du Bois, some 250,000 at more than a dollar a pound, and during WWI prices almost
were imported (15,000 per year from 1808–16 and 15,000 in 1858 doubled.
alone) during this period. Although this figure is probably too high, at 6. After 1880, general stores emerged as the primary distributors of credit
least 13% of all slaves imported came after the slave trade was made in the South, serving as “middlemen’’ between bankers and farmers.
illegal in 1808 (Daniels 1990). Their requirement that virtually all farmland be devoted to cotton led
3. The domestic slave trade flourished from 1790–1860 as the cotton king- to the expansion of cotton into marginal lands, to decreasing self
dom expanded westward. As many as 1,000,000 slaves were moved from sufficiency among Southern farmers, and to the rise of large-scale
the East Coast to the Interior South during this time (Berlin 1998). tenancy among both Blacks and Whites.
4. The invention of the cotton gin in 1793 was the primary impetus
behind the late expansion of both the foreign and domestic slave Additional sources: Ayers 1992; Dodd/Dodd 1973; Gray 1933;
trades. Although long-staple cotton was introduced from Barbados in Foley 1997; Hilliard 1984; Meinig 1986, 1993; Paullin/Wright 1932;
the 1780s, this variety would grow only along the Atlantic Coast. The Phillips 1929; Simkins/Roland 1972; Wright 1986; U.S. Census data.
The relationship between AAVE and SWVE

 Guy Bailey

1,000 bales
10,000 bales
No data
Census
²gures
appear
incorrect

Figure 5. The extent of cotton production in 1859 and 1899 (source: Wright 1986)

Although the Civil War ended slavery, one of its unintended consequences was
the perpetuation both of the Cotton Kingdom and of the plantation system of
agriculture. In fact, as Figure 5 indicates, the Cotton Kingdom continued to
expand as rapidly after the Civil War as before it, with farm tenancy replacing
slavery as the mechanism for meeting the intensive labor demands of cotton.
While at first most tenants were African Americans, during the half century
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

The expansion of farm tenancy in the South

70
60.9
60
52.6 53.3 48.2
Texas 49.7 55.5
50
49.6 49.6 48.2
41.9
37.6 47.0
40
38.5 Entire South
36.2
30

20

10

0
1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940

Figure 6. Percentage of all farmers in Texas and the South as a whole who were
tenants (source: Foley 1997)

after 1880 Southern Whites increasingly became drawn into tenancy until by
1930 more than half of all Southern farmers were tenants. Figure 6 and Table 3
document the rapid spread of tenancy after 1880. As Table 3 suggests, Whites
accounted for much of the increase in tenancy, and those Whites were increas-
ingly sharecroppers.
The spread of the farm tenancy system was, in large part, a consequence of
the absence of credit in the post-Civil War South. With its capital depleted by
the war, the South was dependent on northern banks for credit at exorbitant
rates. General stores emerged throughout the rural South to serve as middle-
men for the northern banks, requiring liens on unplanted crops as collateral for
credit. Because the general stores dispensed seed and supplies on credit, they
determined the amount of a farmer’s land that had to be devoted to cotton.
Over time, they demanded that increasingly larger percentages of land be de-
voted to cotton. As cotton prices fell (see Table 2), farmers were unable to pay
off their loans, lost their land as a result, and were forced to become tenants.
The expansion of tenancy meant the expansion of plantation agriculture, but
with a difference: whereas before the Civil War plantations had relied almost
exclusively on African American labor, with all of the slaves housed together in
quarters, after the war the labor force on plantations included both Blacks and
 Guy Bailey

Table 3. The expansion of tenancy in Texas

Year # White # White # White # Black # Black # Black
owners tenants croppers owners tenants croppers
1900 154,500 129,685 — 20,139 45,306 —
(54.37%) (45.63%) (30.77%) (69.23%)
1910 174,631 170,970 — 21,232 48,605 —
(50.53%) (49.39%) (30.40%) (69.60%)
1920 177,671 177,198 40,382 23,539 55,111 27,999
(50.07%) (49.93%) (22.79%) (29.93%) (70.07%) (50.80%)
1930 169,879 236,321 68,874 20,636 65,399 36,248
(41.82%) (58.19%) (29.14%) (23.99%) (76.01%) (55.42%)
1940 190,067 171,852 24,949 20,115 32,610 14,872
(52.52%) (47.48%) (14.51%) (38.15%) (61.84%) (45.60%)
Note that census classifications did not distinguish among types of tenant farmers before 1920. Source:
Foley 1997. The percentages of tenants and owners represent the percentages of all farmers who
belonged to each category. The percentage of croppers represents the percentage of tenant farmers who
were share croppers.

Whites scattered about in shacks over the plantation. Figure 7, which shows the
arrangement of buildings on the Barrow plantation in Oglethorpe County,
Georgia, in 1860 and in 1881, illustrates the kind of spatial reorganization that
took place on plantations after the Civil War.
The spread of tenancy to Whites and the spatial reorganization of the plan-
tation created new contexts for Black-White speech relationships throughout
the South, contexts which allowed for interaction among African Americans
and Whites that was probably more widespread than before the Civil War and
that took place among people who were closer to being socioeconomic equals.
For more than half a century, then, rural African Americans and Whites in the
South worked in close proximity as both were drawn into the system of ten-
ancy. Hence, we might expect their vernaculars to have much in common and,
as indicated below, they do share many features that emerged during the late
19th and early 20th centuries.
By the mid 20th century, the sociohistorical context for Black-White speech
relationships had changed dramatically. Beginning as early as WWI, African
Americans began leaving the rural South for northern cities. With the advent of
WWII, this process accelerated rapidly. By 1970, 47% of the African American
population lived outside the South and 77% lived in cities. In fact, in 1970, 34%
of African Americans lived in just seven major urban areas — New York, Chi-
cago, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Baltimore. Since
most African Americans ended up in highly segregated inner cities, these migra-
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

tions from the rural South to the urban North must have reduced the opportu-
nities for the kinds of day-to-day interactions that had occurred before WWII.
Any examination of Black-White speech relationships, then, must take into
account at least five sociohistorical contexts. These include:
1. the colonial and post-colonial tobacco plantations of the Upper South,
where slaveholdings were relatively small and Whites almost always out-
numbered Blacks;
2. the colonial and post-colonial rice and indigo plantations along the South
Carolina/Georgia Coast, where plantations were relatively large and African
Americans outnumbered Whites;
3. the post-colonial short-staple cotton plantations of the interior South,
which led to a revitalization of slavery as an economic system and to plan-
tations that were sometimes as large as those in the Carolina/Georgia Low
Country;

Figure 7. The post-Civil War spatial reorganization of the Barrow Plantation in

Oglethorpe County, GA (source: Wright 1986)
 Guy Bailey

Table 4. Sources of data on earlier AAVE (sources that are shaded include
mechanical recordings)
Source Date of corpus Age of Quantity
informants of data
Literary dialect From 18th c N/A Large, esp. after
1825
Slave letters 1st half of 19th c Usually unknown Quite small;
scattered
Freedman’s Bureau After 1865 Born 1st half of Moderately large
Letters 19th c
TN Civil War Veteran’s 1915–19 Born 1820–50 Very large —
Questionnaires 1600+ vets; few
AAs
WPA Ex-slave Late 1930s Born 1840s, 1850s, Very large; 3500+
Narratives 1860s infs.

“Sister dialect’’ 1: 1980s Born 1879–1911 21 interviews

Samaná

“Sister dialect’’ 2: LSE 1980s Early 1900s Unclear

Hoodoo Texts 1/2 (coll. 1936–40 /1970 Born 1830-c. Very large — 1606
by H. M. Hyatt) 1900/unclear infs./14 infs.

Recordings w/former Late 1930s, 1940s, B. 1844–61 12 infs.; 7–8 hrs. of

slaves a few later usable tape

Gee’s Bend Recordings Early 1940s Born 1865-–c.1920 Small — a little

over 2 hours

“Memories’’ Radio mid 1970s 1865-c.1920; mostly Small — 10 infs.

Broadcasts 1890s & early 1900s w/tapes 15–20 min.
each
Springville/E. Central 1983–1998 1879–1994; no gap Large, more than
Texas Survey more than 8 years 300 hours w/150+
infs.
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

Method of Area covered Represen- Validity Comment

collection tativeness
Unsystematic Entire South, Poor Varies; authors Purpose not ling.
observation elsewhere were White
Written by slaves Scattered Very poor; Poor Interesting but
most illiterate limited
Written by Unclear Poor — literacy Unclear Value unclear
former slaves limited
Resp. to written TN Good for White Good for Incl. narratives &
quests. sent to all males; few written source demographic data
vets Blacks
Elicited in field, South & else- Good Poor Dialect some-
written down where; 26 states times added later
elsewhere
Socioling. ints. Speakers of Unclear Probably good See Poplack/
Samaná Tagliamonte
(1989)
Socioling. ints. Speakers of LSE Unclear Probably good See Singler (1989)
Rec. in field, Entire South but Fair — only Good Data matches
then transcribed; mostly TX/FL Hoodoo people people b. 1880s
early recs.
destroyed
Rec. in the field Entire South; Poor because of Good Data matches
by various more from TX small sample people b. 1880s
people
Rec. in the field; Gee’s Bend, AL Fair for area Good Rec. for fed. farm
mostly songs but (near Selma) covered co-op project
90 min. of talk
Conversational In & around Poor because of Good — infs. Rec. for series of
recs. in studio & Natchitoches, small sample little regard radio progs.;
homes LA for rec. equip. excel. sound
Indiv. & group Springville & Excel.; ints. Excel.; site Multifaceted
ints.; site studies; surrounding w/25% of studies & longitudinal
longitudinal data area Springville pop. same race study; ongoing
fldwkers.
 Guy Bailey

Table 5. Available Mechanical Recordings of African Americans Born before 1880

Informant DOB Birthplace Residence Occupation
Wallace Quarterman* 1844 Skidaway Is., GA Frederica, GA Servant, farmer
Charlie Smith 1844 Liberia (Africa) TX; FL; others Cowboy, farmer
Fountain Hughes 1848 Charlottesville, VA Baltimore, MD Field hand, farmer
Harriet Smith 1851 Near Austin, TX central TX Field hand, farmer
Alice Gaston 1853 ? Gee’s Bend, AL Field hand, farmer
Isom Moseley 1856 Georgia Gee’s Bend, AL House servant
Laura Smalley 185? Brazos Bottoms Hempstead, TX Field hand, farmer
Billy McCrea 185? Jasper, TX ? Jasper, TX Field hand, farmer
Joe McDonald** 185? Livingston, AL? Livingston, AL House servant
? Johnson 185? Mississippi Mississippi ?
Anne Williams 185? Eastern VA Norfolk, VA ?
Celia Black 1859 Tyler, TX Tyler, TX House servant
Bob Ledbetter 1861 Oil City, LA ? Oil City, LA Fieldhand, farmer
Lucretia Tyler 1865 Natchitoches, LA Natchitoches, LA Fieldhand
Major Pickney Graham 1870 Travis Co., TX Austin, TX ?
DARE MS076 (female) 1870 MS? Deasonville, MS ?
LAGS # 77B (female) 1877 Rome, GA Rome, GA Teacher
DARE #FL002 (female) 1878 FL? Palatka, FL ?
Edna Marvin *** 1879 Southeast TX Petersburg, TX Farmer
* Gullah speaker also interviewed by Lorenzo Dow Turner; ** an unidentified woman is interviewed
with McDonald; *** this person just recently died; the name is a pseudonym

4. the post-Civil War cotton South, which saw the reemergence of plantation
agriculture, the development of farm tenancy as a system of labor, and the
descent of many Whites into tenancy; and
5. the post-World War II cities which served as destinations for the Great
Migration and saw the development of highly segregated inner cities.

. Sources of data on earlier AAVE

Finding linguistic evidence that bears on these five sociohistorical contexts is

not always a simple matter. While we have a substantial body of evidence on
AAVE in post-World War II cities, we have no direct and little indirect evi-
dence on the speech of African Americans in the colonial period. As a result,
the early linguistic situation in contexts one and two must be inferred from
demographic and sociohistorical data. A number of types of data provide
evidence on mid 19th-century AAVE (contexts three and four), but as Table
4 suggests, none of the data is without problems. The first scholars who ex-
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

DOI Location of ints. Quality Length Fieldworkers

1935 Library of Congress Fair 20 min. Lomax et al.
1974 Library of Congress Good 30 min. Elmer Sparks
1949 Library of Congress Good 40 min. Hermond Norwood
1941 U. of TX# Good 60 min. John Henry Faulk
1941 Library of Congress Good 15 min. Robert Sonkin
1941 Library of Congress Good 20 min. Robert Sonkin
1941 U. of TX# Good 60 min John Henry Faulk
Library of Congress Good 15 min. John & Ruby Lomax
Library of Congress Good 10 min. John Lomax
Library of Congress Poor 45 min. Alan & Eliz. Lomax
Library of Congress Poor 30 min. Roscoe Lewis
1974 Library of Congress Fair 30 min. Elmer Sparks
1940 Library of Congress Good 10 min. John & Ruby Lomax
19?? Private collection Excel. 20 min. Jim Colley
19?? U. of TX Good 60 min. John Henry Faulk
196? U. of WI (DARE) Good 30 min. ?
1971 Emory U. (LAGS) Excel. 5 hours ?
196? U. of WI (DARE) Good 30 min. ?
1998 U. of TX-San Ant. Excel. 60 min. Lori Boykin
# copies of parts of these interviews are in the Archive of Folk Song at the Library of Congress

plored historical relations between AAVE and SWV used attestations from
literary dialect (see, for instance, Dillard 1972 and Stewart 1967, 1968). While
these sources are convenient and readily accessible, early literary representa-
tions of African American speech were written by Whites (i.e., non-native
speakers of the dialect) and were often based on Caribbean rather than U.S.
models (see Cooley 1997).
Although most Southern states had laws forbidding literacy among slaves,
some slaves and former slaves did learn to read and write and some former
slaves even acquired formal education. Thus, a few documents written by slaves
themselves exist. However, most of these are of little linguistic value since they
are mainly in standard English, with sparse evidence of AAVE. Representative-
ness is an even greater problem. Since the vast majority of the mid 19th-cen-
tury slave population was illiterate, it is hard to know how representative letters
written by the small proportion that could read and write are. Finally, the writ-
ten WPA (i.e., Works Project Administration) ex-slave narratives offer an ex-
tremely large body of evidence on early AAVE, with a corpus that includes both
illiterate and literate interviewees and is based on actual field interviews. The
narratives, unfortunately, are not verbatim representations of speech and, in
 Guy Bailey

Table 6. Mechanical recordings of White Southerners born before 1880

Informant DOB Birthplace Residence Occupation
Mrs. Gilmer 1847 Austin, TX Austin, TX Housewife
(upper class)
Robert Scott 1847 Arkansas Dallas, TX Confederate
soldier
Gen. Julius Howell 1849 Eastern VA VA Confederate &
U.S. Soldier
Smoky Mts. 1849 Smokey Mts. (NC) Smokey Mts. (NC) Farmer
Mr. Talley 1854 ? Burleson Co., TX Caldwell, TX Farmer, rancher
Maggie Sampson 1854 Cismont, VA Keswick, VA ?
J. Benjamin Freeman 1857 Wincester, TN Decatur, TX; Cowboy,
Sayre, OK rancher
LAGS #001 1872 Neva, TN Neva, TN Housewife
Plez Jones 1878 Goliad, Barksdale, TX; Rancher,
Co., TX Leakey, TX musician

some cases, the integrity of the data is questionable (see Maynor 1988), al-
though the WPA data and similar sources can be used profitably if analysed
carefully (see Schneider 1989, 1997, fc; Kautzsch 2000).
Though written documents provide limited insight into mid 19th-century
AAVE, we are fortunate to have several sources of recorded evidence that bear
on this time period (again, see Table 4). First, researchers have identified two
“export varieties’’ of AAVE — Samaná and Liberian Settler English (LSE) —
that derive from the speech of former slaves who left the United States during
the early 19th centuries. While it would be a mistake to assume that these vari-
eties represent AAVE as it was spoken before the Civil War, when taken in
conjunction with other sources, they are quite useful as tools for linguistic re-
construction.
Second, linguists have recently discovered the value of H.M. Hyatt’s Hoo-
doo texts. Based on two sets of mechanical recordings, one made in the late
1930s and the other in the early 1970s, these texts are word-for-word tran-
scripts of interviews with African Americans, some of whom were born as early
as the 1830s. Unfortunately, though, the demographic information accompany-
ing the interviews is sparse and all but one of the early set of recordings, the set
that is by far the most valuable, have been destroyed. Nevertheless, these docu-
ments are an important contribution to our understanding of earlier AAVE
(see Ewers 1996).
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

DOI Location of interview Quality Length Fieldworker Comment

1941 U. of TX archive Good 60 min. E. Bagsby Atwood Made by a linguist
1938 Mutual Broad-casting Good 10 min. Unknown reporter Gettysburg 75th
anniv.
? ? Good 20 min. None Formal address
194? Joseph Hall Collection Good ? Joseph Hall Study of Smokey
Mountains
c. 1941 U. of TX archive Fair 30 min. John Henry Faulk Circumstances of
int. unclear
? Library of Congress Fair 5 min. ?
c. 1941 U. of TX archive Fair/poor 30 min. John Henry Faulk Circumstances of
int. unclear
1973 Emory U. (LAGS) Excel. 4 hours Lee Pederson LAGS int.
1979 U. of TX Good 90 min. Lora B. Garrison Circumstances of
int. unclear

Third, researchers have been able to uncover a number of extant mechani-

cal recordings made with African Americans born in the second and third
quarters of the 19th century. As Table 5 indicates, researchers have to date
uncovered recordings with about 20 African Americans born before 1880, some
of them made by researchers working in conjunction with the WPA, others
done in conjunction with linguistics or oral history projects. While these re-
cordings vary widely in quality and taken together yield only about 15 hours
of evidence, they provide unique insight on the phonology of mid 19th-century
AAVE and, when compared to recordings with comparable Whites listed on
Table 6, on early Black-White speech relationships as well.
Finally, several contemporary studies of older, life-long residents of insular,
rural communities in the South provide evidence that complements all of these
sources. The research of Wolfram and his associates in Hyde and Warren coun-
ties in North Carolina and of Bailey and Cukor-Avila in Springville, Texas,
provides data on comparable Blacks and Whites born as early as the last two
decades of the 19th century. The Texas data comes from the same area as sev-
eral of the recordings with former slaves and also with Whites born in the mid
19th century. When these sources are pieced together, they provide evidence
on a century and a half of AAVE, evidence that spans the last years of the ex-
pansion of the Cotton Kingdom (sociohistorical context #3 above), the advent
of farm tenancy (sociohistorical context #4), and the consequences of urbaniza-
 Guy Bailey

tion (sociohistorical context #5). For all of these, there is at least some evidence
from comparable Whites.

. Some phonological features of AAVE and SWVE

Table 7 lists 45 phonological features that have been discussed in the literature
either on AAVE or on the Southern White Vernacular English (SWVE) of the
old cotton South, along with examples of those features and what current re-
search seems to indicate is their scope. The first six features occur in many
varieties of English, some of which have only the remotest historical connections
to each other and to AAVE (consonant cluster reduction probably occurs to
some extent in all varieties of English). As a result, these features are probably
not useful in assessing the relationships between AAVE and SWVE. Most of the
remaining 38, however, occur primarily in AAVE, occur primarily in SWVE, or
are shared by AAVE and SWVE but are infrequent in other American dialects.
Features 7–26 occur in both AAVE and SWVE, but not all of them are
distributed the same way within each variety. Although features 7–13 were
common both in earlier AAVE and in earlier SWVE, they are now restricted to
the speech of the oldest and most insular Whites. At least three of the features
(long offglides in /æ/, the loss of intersyllabic /r/, and the vocalization of
stressed syllabic /r/) are receding in the speech of African Americans as well
(see Lambert 1995 and Shremp 1995). While the vocalization of post-vocalic
and unstressed syllabic /r/ is still common in AAVE, the status of the other
three features is not clear. Features 14–26, however, remain widespread in both
AAVE and SWVE. In fact, features such as upgliding /ɔ/, glide reduction in /ai/
and /ɔi/, and the merger of /ε/ and // before nasals are defining phonological
characteristics of both varieties. Surprisingly, none of these 13 features seems
to have been well-established by the middle of the 19th century. Recent re-
search shows clearly that several of them, such as the merger of /ε/ and // be-
fore nasals and of /e/ and /ε/ before tautosyllabic /r/, either emerged or became
widespread during the last quarter of the 19th century and first quarter of the
20th century (Bailey 1997; Brown 1991; Taylor 1995). The shared features in
section two of Table 7, then, comprise two sets: one includes features that were
clearly established in both AAVE and SWVE by the middle of the 19th century
but that are rapidly disappearing in White speech and in some instances, in
Black speech as well; the other includes late 19th-and early 20th-century devel-
opments that are still defining characteristics of both AAVE and SWVE.
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

Table 7. Some phonological features of AAVE and/or Southern White vernacu-

lars

Features Examples Scope

1. Final C-cluster reduction cold → [coul]; all Eng. var.; more freq.
(loss of 2nd C) hand → [hæn] in AAVE
2. Unstressed syl. del. (init. & about → ‘bout; most Eng. var.; more
med. syls.) government → gov’ment freq. in AAVE
3. Haplology (del. of redupli- Mississippi → [msp]; most Eng. var.; more
cated syl.) general → [d εnr] freq. in AAVE
4. Vocalization of postvocalic bell → [bε
]; many Eng. var.; frequent
/l/ pool → [pu
] in AAVE
5. Syl.-initial fricative stopping those → [douz]; AAVE & No. non-stan-
(esp. w/vd. fricatives) these → [dez] dard varieties
6. Stopping of vl. interdental tenth → [tnt]; AAVE & No. non-stan-
fricatives (esp. contiguous with → [wt] dard varieties
to nasals)
7. Long offglides after /æ/ be- half → [hæif]; old-fashioned AAVE &
fore vl. fricatives, nasals, & bag → [bæi] SWV
/g/
8. Labialization of interdental bath → [bæf]; AAVE & old-fashioned
fricatives baths → [bævz] SWV
9. Metathesis of final /s/+stop ask → [æks]; AAVE & old-fashioned
grasp → [ræps ] SWV
10. Vocalization or loss of hurry → [h]; AAVE & old-fashioned
intersyllabic /r/ furrow → [fə] SWV
11. Vocalization of stressed syl- bird → [bd]; AAVE & old-fashioned
labic /r/ burr → [b] SWV
12. Vocalization of postvocalic four → [foə], [fou]; AAVE & older SWV
/r/ ford → [foəd]
13. Vocalization of unstressed father → [fɑðə]; AAVE & older SWV
syllabic /r/ never → [nεvə]
14. Upgliding /ɔ/ dog → [dɔo]; AAVE & SWV (diminish-
caught → [kɔot] ing)
15. Unrounded onsets in /ɔ/ dog → [dɑɔ]; AAVE & SWV (diminish-
caught → [kɑɔt] ing)
16. Loss of /r/ after consonants throw → [ou]; AAVE & SWV
(after // & in unstressed professor → [pəfεsə]
syllables)
17. Front stressing of initial police → [pou¹lis]; AAVE & SWV
syllables Detroit → [di′trɔt]
 Guy Bailey

18. Fricative stopping before isn’t → [dn]; AAVE & SWV

nasals wasn’t → [wdn]
19. Glide reduction of /ai/ tied → [tɑ: d]; AAVE & SWV
[ɑ>ɑ] before vd. tie → [tɑ:]
obstruents & finally
20. Glide reduction of /ɔ/ oil → [ɔə]; AAVE & SWV
[ɔ>ɔə] before /l/ boil → bɔə]
21. Merger of /ε/ & // before pen → [pn]; AAVE & SWV
nasals Wednesday → [wnzd]
22. Merger of /ɔr/ & /or/ horse → [hos]; morning AAVE & SWV
→ [monn]
23. Merger of /er/ & /εr/ Mary → [mε ]; AAVE & SWV
Carey → [kε ]
24. Loss of /h/ in initial /hw/ which → [wtʃ]; change in progress in
clusters whether → [wεð ] AAVE & SWV
25. Merger of tense & lax front bale → [bεə]; change in progress in
vowels before /l/ feel → [fə] AAVE & SWV
26. Loss of /j/ after alveolars new → [nυu]; change in progress in
Tuesday → [tυuzd] AAVE & SWV
27. Monophthongal /e/ & /o/ day → [de:]; know → [no:] early AAVE; rare in SWVE
28. Raising of /æ/ in isolation bag → [bε]; apparently unique to
(i.e., not part of a chain pads → [pεdz] AAVE
shift)
29. Reduction of final nasal to man → [mæ̃] apparently unique to
V nasality AAVE
30. Final C deletion (esp. af- five → fi_ [fa:]; apparently unique to
fects nasals) fine → fi_ [fa:] AAVE
31. Final stop devoicing (w/o bad → [bæt] apparently unique to
shortening of preceding AAVE
segment)
32. Coarticulated glottal stop bad → [bætʔ] apparently unique to
w/devoiced final stop AAVE
33. Loss of /j/ after consonants computer → [kəmpuɾə]; apparently unique to
Houston → [hustn] AAVE
34. Substitution of /k/ for /t/ in street → [skrit]; apparently unique to
/str/ clusters stream → [skrim] AAVE
35. Intrusive /r/ in words like wash → [wɑʃ]; Washing- primarily in older SWV
wash ton → [wɑʃitən]
36. Merger of /ɔr/ & /ɑr/ lord → [lɑd]; primarily in older Texas
forty → [fɑdı̋] SWV
37. Fronting of /u/ & /υ/ food → [fd]; primarily in SWV (&
good → [υ– d] other Wh. var.)
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

38. Fronting of the onset house → [hæos]; primarily in SWV (&

in /au/ thousand → [æozn] other Wh. var.)
39. Lowering/retraction of /e/ day → [dæ>]; primarily in SWV
weigh → [wæ>] (Southern Shift)
40. Lowering/fronting of /o/ know → [ nɐυ]; primarily in SWV
boat → [bɐυt] (Southern Shift)
41. Glide shortening of /ai/ be- night → [nɑ:t]; primarily in SWV
fore vl obstruents white → [hwɑ:t]
42. Merger of /ær/ & /εr/ marry → [mε ]; incipient feature of SWV
merry → [mæ ]
43. Merger of /u/ & /υ/ before school → [skυə]; incipient feature of SWV,
/l/ pool → [pυə] esp. in Southwest
44. Merger of /ɔ / and /ɑ/ caught → [kɑt]; incipient feature of SWV,
lost → [lɑst] esp. in Southwest
45. Loss of /h/ before /j/ huge → [jud ]; incipient feature of SWV,
Houston → [justən] esp. in Southwest
Key: C = consonant(s); V = vowel(s); del. = deletion; syl(s) = syllable(s); vd = voiced; vl = voiceless;
init. = initial; med. = medial
Sources: Anshen 1969; Bailey 1981, 1993, 1997; Bailey & Maynor 1989; Bailey & Thomas 1998a, 1998b;
Bailey, Wikle & Sand 1991a, b; Bailey, Wikle, Tillery & Sand 1991, 1993, 1996; Baratz & Shuy 1969;
Baugh 1996; Bernstein 1993; Brown 1991; Cukor-Avila 1989; Deser 1990; Dorrill 1981, 1986; Edwards
1992, 1996; Fasold 1981; Fasold & Wolfram 1970; Feagin 1990, 1997; Kerr 1989; Kerr-Mattox 1990;
Kurath & McDavid 1961; Labov 1991, 1997; Labov, Yaeger & Steiner 1972; Lambert 1995; Luelsdorff
1975; McDavid & McDavid 1951; Pederson 1972; Phillips 1981; Pitts 1986; Reed 1991; Schremp 1995;
Stockman 1996; Taylor 1995; Thomas 1989a, 1989b, 1995, 1997; Thomas & Bailey 1992, 1993, 1998;
Tillery 1989, 1992; Tucker & Lambert 1966; Turner 1949; Vaughn-Cooke 1986; Veatch 1991; Walton
& Orlikoff 1994; Williamson 1961; Wolfram 1969, 1994.

Features 27–34 are either unique to AAVE or extremely rare in SWVE. The
first of these, monophthongal /e/ and /o/, is now obsolete in AAVE, but
Thomas/Bailey (1998) indicate that it is crucial in reconstructing the history of
that variety. This feature also occurs in Gullah and Anglophone Caribbean
Creoles, but in SWVE it occurs only in the historically Francophone areas of
Louisiana and among older people along the South Carolina/Georgia Coast,
where Africans Americans historically comprised a large majority of the popu-
lation. Thomas/Bailey (1998) suggest that this feature may ultimately have its
origins in the African languages brought by slaves to the United States. The
raising of /æ/ in all environments seems to have been a mid to late19th-century
development in AAVE, but little is known about the history of the other fea-
tures in this category.
Features 35–45 are quite common in SWVE but rare in AAVE. They include
 Guy Bailey

the set of features that Labov (1991) has collectively called the “Southern Shift’’
— the fronting of /u/ and /υ/, the fronting/lowering of /o/, and the lowering/
retraction of /e/. While some of these features represent post-WWII develop-
ments (e.g., the merger of /ɔ/ and /ɑ/ and the loss of /h/ before /j/) and the ori-
gins of others are unclear (e.g., intrusive /r/), many of them, including the South-
ern Shift features, fronted onsets in /au/, and glide-shortening of /ai/ before
voiceless obstruents, seem either to have emerged or expanded rapidly during the
last quarter of the 19th century and first quarter of the 20th century. All of the
features in this category except for the first two remain widespread in SWVE.

. Relationships between the phonologies of AAVE and SWVE

The features in Table 7 suggest several generalizations about the phonological

relationships between AAVE and SWVE. Figures 8–13 illustrate these general-
izations. First, many of the features shared by contemporary AAVE and SWVE
in contradistinction to other American dialects either emerged or became wide-
spread during the last quarter of the 19th century — in the post-Civil War
cotton South (designated as sociohistorical context #4 above). These features
include several hallmarks of both varieties, including the merger of /ε/ and //
before nasals, glide-shortened or monophthongal /a/ before voiced obstruents,
and glide-shortened /ɔ/ before /l/. During this period, many Whites were
drawn into the farm tenancy system as tenants, something which brought Afri-
can Americans and Whites in close contact, in many instances as economic if
not social equals. The shared features suggest that the increased contact may
have had significant linguistic consequences.
AAVE and SWVE did not share all phonological developments in the post-
Civil War cotton South, however. The changes in the use of vowel space that
comprise the Southern Shift occurred primarily in White speech. The differ-
ences between the shared developments and those that occurred primarily in
White speech suggest a second generalization about phonological relationships
between AAVE and SWVE: shared features tend to involve mergers, glide
shortenings of offglides in diphthongs, and changes in the shape of initial con-
sonant clusters, while differences tend to involve the use of vowel space. This
distinction is not absolute, but the use of vowel space is perhaps the most im-
portant phonological difference between AAVE and SWVE. The earliest record-
ings of AAVE and SWVE that we have (i.e., from African Americans and
Whites born in the post-colonial cotton South — sociohistorical context #3
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

F2

1700
1600
1500
1400
1300
1200
1100
3000
2900
2800
2700
2600
2500
2400
2300
2200
2100
2000
1900
1800

100
900
800
700
600
500
200

i. .u 300
i. 400
. .υ o
e .ε
 . . . oi
. . 500
æ. ɔ
.
au 600
.ɑ F1
. ˆ
ai 700
ai°
800

900

1000

Figure 8. Vowel system of an African American female, b. 1856, from

Hempstead, TX
F2
1800
1700
1600
1500
1400
1300
1200
1100
3000
2900
2800
2700
2600
2500
2400
2300
2200
2100
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1900

100
900
800
700
600
500

200

300

400
i. u
.
υ. 500
..
i o
. .
e .ε
600
. F1
 ɔ
. 700

æN. .ɑ 800
au . .
. . ai° ˆ
900
æ ai
1000

Figure 9. Vowel system of a white male male, b. 1847, from Dallas, TX (born
in White Co., AR)
 Guy Bailey

above) show that mid 19th-century AAVE and SWVE were similar, though not
identical, in their use of vowel space (see Figures 8 and 9). As Figures 10–13
demonstrate, the differences that did exist (for instance, the more fronted /u/
and /υ/ of SWVE) gradually expanded, and a number of new developments
emerged after 1900 in SWVE so that by the middle of the 20th century, AAVE
and SWVE differed in their uses of vowel space in the following ways:
1. SWVE has fronted /u/ and /υ/; in AAVE they remain back;
2. SWVE has fronted onsets in /au/; in AAVE they remain central;
3. SWVE has lowered/retracted /e/; AAVE shows minimal retraction;
4. SWVE has centralized and/or lowered /o/; in AAVE it remains back; and
5. AAVE has raised /æ/ in all environments, SWVE only before nasals.
The expanding differences in the use of vowel space suggest a third general-
ization about the phonological relationships among AAVE and SWVE. More
recent phonological developments have primarily affected SWVE and tend to
accentuate differences between the two varieties. In particular, post-World War
II developments (i.e., those in sociohistorical context #5) such as the merger of
/ɔ/ and /ɑ/, the merger of /u/ and /υ/ before /l/, and the loss of /h/ before /j/

F2
1400
1300
1200
1100
3000
2900
2800
2700
2600
2500
2400
2300
2200
2100
2000
1900
1800
1700
1600
1500

100
900
800
700
600
500

200

300
i. .u
400
i r
. o
υ . 500
. . .
oi
e .ε .
o r
ɔ 600
.
ɔ. F1
. ˆ r
æ ɑ.. . ɑ 700
ai° . ai.
au
. 800
aiN
900

1000

Figure 10. Vowel system of an African American male, b. 1912, from

Springville, TX
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

F2

1900
1800
1700
1600
1500
1400
1300
1200
1100
3000
2900
2800
2700
2600
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2400
2300
2200
2100
2000

100
900
800
700
600
500
200

. 300
i <school’s>
. .u . <full> 400
. .υ . or
. .
r i
i e . ε .r o. r
 .ɑ 500
e . . oi
æ . ɑ. . ɔr 600
. ɔ
ˆ
au ai . F1
ai° 700

800

900

1000

Figure 11. Vowel system of a white female, b. 1907, from Springville, TX

F2
1600
1500
1400
1300
1200
1100
3000
2900
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1700

100
900
800
700
600
500

200

300
.i
u. 400
.i . υl

.ε υ . . ul .
ɔr=or
500

.e 600
. .æ . o. . oi F1
æ
. . ɑr 700
ɑ .
.
ˆ ɔ
au . ai
ai° 800

900

1000

Figure 12. Vowel system of an African American female, b. 1961, from

Hempstead, TX
 Guy Bailey

F2

1600
1500
1400
1300
1200
1100
2300
2200
2100
2000
1900
1800
1700
3000
2900
2800
2700
2600
2500
2400

100
900
800
700
600
500
200

300

.i .u 400
. ul
N .i υ. . .oi
æ . 500
υl . ɔr=or
600
.ε . F1
.e 700
æ
. .o
au .ɑr 800

900
. ɑ= ɔ 1000
ˆ
.
. ai
ai°
Figure 13. Vowel system of a white female, b. 1965, from Grand Prairie, TX

affect SWVE almost exclusively. Figure 14, which shows the effects of ethnicity
on some sound changes in Texas, illustrates the differential effects of pre- and
post-World War II developments. Those changes that became robust by 1930
show no effects of ethnicity; those that became robust afterward show dramatic
(and statistically significant) effects.

Key to Figure 14:

Token Phonological feature Conservative form Innovative form
thousand fronting of onset in /aυ/ [a~ɑυzn] [æυzn]
pen merger of /ε/ & // __ nasals [pεn] [pn]
Tuesday loss of /j/ after alveolars [tjuzdi] [tuzdi]
sale merger of /e/ & /ε/ __ /l/ [se] [sε]
field merger of /i/ & // __ /l/ [fid] [fid]
school merger of /u/ & /υ/ __ /l/ [sku] [skυ]
forty constriction of postvocalic /r/ [fɔəɾi] [fɔ ɾ]
lost merger of /ɔ/ & /ɑ/ [lɔst] [lɑst]
walk merger of /ɔ/ & /ɑ/ [wɔk] [wɑk]
night monophthongal /a/ __ vl. [nait] [na: t]
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

The eºects of ethnicity on sound change in Texas

100
90
82
Ethnicity
rounded to nearest whole

80
% using innovative form

Black
64 62 White
60
51
48 47
39
40 35
29 30
27 28 27
20 21 20
20
10
4 1
0
>1880 <1880 1890 1914 1920 1930 1945 1960 1960 1960>
(thousand) (pen) (Tuesday) (safe) (field) (school) (forty) (lost) (walk) (night)

Approximate time diºusion began

Figure 14. Percent of Anglo and African American respondents using the
innovative form in the January, 1989 Texas Poll (source: Bailey 1993)

Finally, many of the remaining differences between AAVE and SWVE tend
either to reflect the more conservative nature of AAVE or to involve final sin-
gleton consonants. The persistence of r-lessness and upgliding /ɔ/ in AAVE
reflects the first of these while the deletion of final consonants in words like five
and glottal coarticulation with devoiced final stops (as in [bætʔ] for bad) reflect
the latter.

. Conclusion

As the above discussion suggests, the phonological relationships among AAVE

and SWVE are complex and evolving. Although these varieties share many
features that distinguish them from other American dialects, they also differ
from one another in significant ways. Two factors seem particularly important
in the evolving relationships. One is temporal: many of the similarities between
current AAVE and current SWVE reflect parallel developments that took place
in the post-Civil War cotton South, while a number of the differences reflect
either recent independent developments in SWVE or the more conservative
 Guy Bailey

nature of AAVE phonology. The second factor involves phonological subsys-

tems: AAVE and SWVE have always differed in their use of vowel space, al-
though post-Civil War developments seem to have accentuated the differences.
Most of their shared features represent mergers, the glide reductions (e.g., the
reduction of the offglides in /a/ and /ɔ/), and the simplification of initial con-
sonant clusters (e.g., /hw/ and /tj/). If these phonological relationships seem
complex, they are no more complex than the sociohistorical contexts within
which AAVE and SWVE emerged. Those contexts suggest a shared history, but
they also suggest independent development and unique origins. That is exactly
what the phonological evidence shows.

Notes

. Much of the research on which this chapter is based was conducted jointly with Erik
Thomas. That work is summarized in Thomas/Bailey (1998) and Bailey/Thomas (1998a,
1998b). I wish to thank him for his help. I also wish to thank Tom Wikle, Jan Tillery, and
Patricia Cukor-Avila for their contributions to this chapter.
. For a typical statement of this position, see Bereiter/Engelmann (1967).
. McDavid/McDavid (1951) is the most detailed and carefully nuanced statement of this
position and the most straightforward summary of the larger racist context which served
as a backdrop to their work: “the scholar who accepts the theory of Negro inferiority
tends to explain any apparent differences between Negro and White speech on the basis
of the Negro’s childlike mind or imperfectly developed speech organs’’ (5). The
McDavids, Juanita Williamson, Hans Kurath, and others hoped to use their linguistic
research to help dispel myths such as these.
. See B. Bailey (1965) and Stewart (1967, 1968) for early statements of this position and
Rickford (1997) for a more recent one.
. In the aftermath of the recent controversy over the Oakland School Board’s resolution,
the term “Ebonics’’ has come to have a wide range of uses. The focus of this chapter is
on the linguistic positions articulated by Williams (1975) and Smith (1997).
. I do not mean to suggest here that Ebonicists have argued for the federal money that now
goes for second language instruction, but rather that their position, if correct, implies a
need for similar funds.
. For an excellent argument for the adequacy of AAVE, see Labov’s “The logic of nonstan-
dard English’’ (1972).
. This is not to say that books and articles advocating the deficit position do not still occa-
sionally appear. Note, for instance, Orr (1987).
 The relationship between AAVE and SWVE 

. For representative works by these scholars, see Labov (1972), Fasold (1972, 1981),
Wolfram (1969, 1974), Rickford (1977, 1986), Hancock (1986), Baugh (1980, 1983), and
Smitherman (1977, 1994).
. See Bailey/Maynor (1985a, 1985b, 1987, 1989) and Cukor-Avila (1995).
. See Mufwene (1996a, 1996b), Rickford (1997, 1998), and Winford (1997, 1998) for excel-
lent discussions of these issues.
. See Bailey/Thomas (1998a) for a discussion of the postcolonial development of AAVE.
. The viability of short-staple cotton as a cash crop, of course, was the major impetus for
the rapid acquisition and settlement between 1790 and 1830 of lands held by Native
Americans.
. For instance, Wade Hampton, the largest slaveholder in South Carolina, brought many
slaves with him as he developed new plantations in the Mississippi Delta.
. Sharecropping, of course, refers to a financial arrangement in which the owner supplied
all implements, mules, and cotton seed for half of the cotton produced. Other financial
arrangements were made when tenants owned mules and implements or just implements
(in these cases, the owner received either a fourth or a third of the cotton produced).
. Because of its role as the dispenser of credit, the general store stood at the center of the
rural Southern economy between 1880 and 1940. The store supplied goods, often served
as the Post Office, and was a primary gathering place for the rural community. For a
discussion of the importance of the general store to the rural South, see Ayers (1992); for
a linguistic study of an insular rural community organized around a general store, see
Cukor-Avila (1995) and Cukor-Avila/Bailey (1995).
. Work on an “export variety’’ of SWVE in Brazil shows that while this variety preserves
many older features of SWVE, like other dialects it too has undergone a number of
changes. For instance, Brazilian SWVE has features such as dental /t/ and the tag “no’’
(as in “Southern English in Brazil, no?’’) that clearly reflect Portuguese influence (see
Bailey/Smith 1992).
. Using recordings made in the mid 20th century with people born in the mid 19th century
to make inferences about 19th-century AAVE assumes that one’s basic vernacular does
not change after the teenage years. Although there is currently little published evidence
to support this claim, our work in Springville over the last ten years lends strong support
to it. Many Springville informants have been interviewed multiple times over a ten-year
period (see Cukor-Avila this volume); to this point, we have found no age-graded
changes that affect adults.
. The discussion in this section is based on Bailey/Thomas (1998b) and Thomas/Bailey
(1998). Because research on phonology lags behind research on morphosyntax, in some
instances the generalizations about scope in Table 7 must be regarded as provisional. The
text of this chapter focuses on those features for which we have the best knowledge base.
. In SWVE, /æ/ is raised before nasals but usually not elsewhere; in many Northern cities,
 Guy Bailey

/æ/ is raised as part of a chain shift. In AAVE, /æ/ is raised in all environments but not
as part of a chain shift.
. Not all of the constraints on these features are the same, however. Although both AAVE
and SWVE have glide-shortened /ai/, AAVE has this feature only before voiced
obstruents; in some varieties of SWVE, it also occurs before voiceless obstruents.
. Chi square tests show that the differences between AAVE and SWVE are significant at
least at the .05 level for changes that became robust after 1930.

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 Chapter 4

Co-existing grammars: The relationship

between the evolution of African
American and White Vernacular English
in the South

Patricia Cukor-Avila
University of North Texas

. Introduction

Although three decades of linguistic research have clearly demonstrated that

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is not a substandard dialect re-
sulting from speakers with physical and mental handicaps (cf. Bereiter/Engle-
mann 1966 and Jensen 1969) or who are culturally deprived (Deutsch/Katz/
Jensen 1968), there are still many unresolved issues surrounding the origins of
AAVE and its phonological and grammatical relationship to other vernacular
varieties of English. Many of the questions are a consequence of methodologi-
cal shortcomings in the research on AAVE. Much of the early survey research
was plagued with non-representative samples; for example, the early linguistic
atlas surveys typically underrepresented the speech of African Americans, even
in areas where African Americans made up a significant percentage of the pop-
ulation. Much of the ethnographic research has focused on Northern cities
where African Americans were relative newcomers and regional differences
became conflated with ethnic ones. More recent research, however, has at-
tempted to address some of the deficiencies of the earlier studies by focusing
on selected phonological or grammatical features within smaller populations
of African Americans and Whites, with specific attention paid to the speech of
Southern White Vernacular English (SWVE) speakers. In a diachronic and
synchronic analysis of the vowel systems of AAVE and SWVE, Bailey (this
volume) and Bailey/Thomas (1998: 105–7) suggest that the history of the AAVE
vowel system can be divided into three periods:
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

1. an early period in which AAVE retained certain phonological features that

reflect a shared heritage with Caribbean Anglophone creoles and perhaps
even have African roots;
2. a second period after the mid 1800s in which AAVE lost its creole charac-
teristics and shared many phonological features with SWVE; and
3. a third period after WWI marked by independent developments in both
the AAVE and SWVE vowel systems.

Their research suggests an evolving relationship in the phonological develop-

ment of Southern African American and White vernaculars. The present analy-
sis, based on longitudinal data from several generations in a single community,
will show a similar evolution in AAVE and SWVE for the grammatical system
as well.

. Previous research on AAVE and SWVE

The initial research describing the AAVE grammatical system was based on the
speech of adolescents in Northern urban areas (Labov et al. 1968; Wolfram
1969; Fasold 1972). These analyses suggested fundamental grammatical differ-
ences from “standard’’ English, most notably in tense marking and the use of
present tense be. The absence of present tense third person singular -s (as in
‘‘She work in the city’’), the absence of third person singular copula (as in ‘‘He
Ø in the house watchin’ TV’’), the absence of plural and second person singular
copula (as in ‘‘They Ø gonna be here soon’’), and the use of invariant be for
habitual action (as in ‘‘They be out in the yard every night’’ or ‘‘We be talkin’
on the phone a lot’’) were the features most often discussed in descriptions of
African American speech; consequently these features formed the core of inves-
tigations into the relationship of Southern AAVE and SWVE.
However, even when linguists turned their attention to the study of South-
ern speech, inaccurate conclusions about the relationship between Black and
White vernaculars were drawn because many of these investigations analyzed
the speech of a small subset of the population rather than gathering data from
generations of comparable speakers. As Table 1 shows, much of the early com-
parative research on Southern vernacular speech investigated the speech of one
generation, usually pre-adolescents and adolescents, and concentrated mainly
on the use of present tense copula forms, specifically the use of habitual be.
Wolfram (1971, 1974) suggests qualitative similarities in the distribution of
 Co-existing grammars: AAVE and SWVE 

singular and plural copula absence for both African American and White
children living in rural Mississippi; however, since only the AAVE-speaking
children in his study use habitual be, he concludes that ‘‘‘distributive be’ is
typically not found in Southern White speech, though it is an integral aspect
of all VBE [Vernacular Black English] varieties studied’’ (Wolfram 1974: 524).
Dunlap (1974) and Sommer (1986) come to similar conclusions based on their
data in Atlanta from African American and White fifth graders of comparable
social classes.
While these studies made a substantial contribution to the understanding of
the distribution of copula forms in younger speakers, they provided only a small
portion of the data necessary to address the history of Black-White speech rela-
tionships in the South. The studies by Bailey/Maynor (1985a, 1985b) and Bailey/
Bassett (1986) were designed to address this gap in the research through an ex-
amination of present tense be forms in adult speech. Bailey/Bassett (1986) show
a similar qualitative distribution for habitual be in the speech of Type I African
American and White adults in data collected in Mississippi and Louisiana for the
Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States (LAGS). Data from rural African Americans
and Whites over 65 in Texas and Mississippi parallel the findings from LAGS
(Bailey/Maynor 1985a, 1985b); moreover, these speakers show similar patterns
for singular and plural copula absence and the use of is for are.
The research on adult speech provided important new data with which to
dispel some of the previously held misconceptions about the occurrence of
invariant be and copula absence in SWVE, but it left unanswered questions
concerning the distribution of other AAVE grammatical features in the South.
The remaining studies shown in Table 1, which include data from a range of
grammatical features, either compare their occurrence in SWVE to Northern
AAVE (Feagin 1979) or neglect to report fully on the data from those compari-
sons (Butters/Nix 1986). Table 2 outlines in more detail the strengths and limi-
tations of each of these earlier studies.
In an overview of Black-White speech relationships, Fasold (1981) investi-
gates the occurrence of several AAVE phonological and grammatical features
in SWVE. He concludes that:
[T]here is evidence, then, that some aspects of VBE [specifically copula absence
and ‘distributive’ be] distinguish its speakers from even the most sociologically
comparable White speakers in the South. What is known about some of those
features is consistent with the hypothesis that they arose from a creole language
and their current place in VBE grammar can be understood as the result of
decreolization (183).
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

Table 1. Analysis of grammatical features in previous studies comparing AAVE

and SWVE*
Feature Wolfram 1971, Dunlap 1974 Feagin 1979 Fasold 1981
1974
zero is shared in LMB, LB only shared in some shared in some
some SWVE SWVE SWVE
zero are shared UMB, LMB, LB shared shared
habitual be AAVE only AAVE only shared in some AAVE only
SWVE
plural is LW, LMB, LB shared
neg. concord shared
invariant was shared in WC shared
invariant don’t shared in WC
ain’t shared in WC shared
ain’t for didn’t AAVE only
liketa shared
a+V+ing shared
mult. modals shared shared
inv. indir. quest. shared

non-std. preterite shared in WC shared

non-std. past part. shared in WC shared
there’s+NP pl. UC and WC
NP[-they] pl+-s WC only
1st person -s shared in WC
zero 3rd sing. -s AAVE, WNS shared in WC shared in WNS

perf. done shared in WC shared

existential it shared
future gon shared
del. subj. relative shared
zero plural -s AAVE only
remote been shared in some AAVE only
SWVE
zero poss. -s AAVE, WNS AAVE only
location prep. to
for at

be+V
*LMB lower middle Black; LB lower Black; UMB upper middle Black; LW lower White; WC
working class; WNS White non-standard
 Co-existing grammars: AAVE and SWVE 

Feature Bailey/ Nichols Bailey/ Sommer Butters/

Maynor 1985 1986 Bassett 1986 1986 Nix 1986
zero is shared–not
common
zero are shared
habitual be shared–prim AAVE only shared in UMB, LB
AAVE Type I SWVE
plural is shared LW, UMB, LB
neg. concord
invariant was LW, UMB, LB
invariant don’t
ain’t
ain’t for didn’t
liketa
a+V+ing
mult. modals
inv. indir. quest. A/A males;
no data on
Whites
non-std. preterite
non-std. past part.
there’s+NP pl.
NP[-they] pl+-s
1st person -s
zero 3rd sing. -s UMB, LB A/A males;
no data on others
perf. done
existential it
future gon
del. subj. relative
zero plural -s
remote been

zero poss. -s
location prep. to shared in
for at older inf.,
var. in
younger inf.
be+V+ing UMB, LB
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

Most of the studies on which Fasold bases his conclusions are from compari-
sons of research from single generations of speakers gathered at one point in
time. This type of analysis presupposes a static rather than a dynamic relation-
ship between AAVE and SWVE. However, as stated above, data from a longitu-
dinal study of several generations of AAVE and SWVE speakers suggests a more
complex relationship.

Table 2. Strengths and limitations of early studies comparing AAVE and SWVE
Study Strengths Limitations
Wolfram 1971, 1974 comparable A/As & Whites concl. made w/data from children
Rural Mississippi only; MC speakers were
comparison group; limited set of
gram. features
Dunlap 1974 comparable A/As & Whites conclusions made w/data from
Atlanta children only; investigated copular
be only; limited set of gram.
features
Feagin 1979 thorough investigation of compares SWVE data from urban
Alabama SWVE in one community; & rural teens & adults to urban
investigates distribution of Northern AAVE from teens
several features
Fasold 1981 complete overview of many assumes static relationship
features comparing AAVE between AAVE and SWVE; no
& SWVE; meta analysis comparison over time; no new
data
Bailey/Maynor 1985a, extend comparison of limited set of features studied
1985b; AAVE & SWVE by
Texas and Miss. analyzing adult speech
Nichols 1986 investigates variation & limited set of features studied;
S. Carolina change in the use of compares SWVE to Gullah
prepositions (a feature not
previously studied)
Bailey/Bassett 1986 study comparable LAGS data only shows occurrence
Louisiana and Miss. generations of A/As & of feature, not distribution; studied
Whites only one gram. feature
Sommer 1986 comparable A/As & Whites conclusions made w/data from
Atlanta children only
Butters/Nix 1986 investigate gender no report on data from Whites &
N. Carolina differences in comparable older speakers
A/As & Whites
 Co-existing grammars: AAVE and SWVE 

. The relationship between AAVE and SWVE in Springville

The data outlined in Tables 1 and 2 point to the fact that conclusions drawn
about the relationship between AAVE and SWVE depend on three factors: (1)
the time frame in which the speech is investigated–in other words, the age(s)
of the speakers; (2) the location of the study (urban, rural, upper South, lower
South); and (3) the features studied. Table 3 lists the informants in a longitudi-
nal study, based in the rural Texas community of Springville, designed not only
to build on the work of previous studies of AAVE and SWVE, but also to ad-
dress the limitations discussed in Table 2 (see Cukor-Avila 1995 and Cukor-
Avila/Bailey 1995a for a complete discussion of the methodology of the
Springville study). Springville is an insular, rural community organized around
a general store. It is a contemporary relic of the plantation agriculture that
developed during tenancy; in fact, many of the residents of Springville are ei-
ther tenant farmers or their descendents. Eleven years of fieldwork in this com-
munity have provided opportunities to record speech from residents born be-
tween 1894 and 1995, thus enabling the documentation of 100 years of
Springville speech in apparent time collected over more than a decade of real
time. As can be seen in Table 3, many of the Springville informants have been
recorded numerous times over the past 11 years; moreover, most informants
have been recorded in more than one context and several have been recorded
in all three of the main interview contexts. These data have been further sup-
plemented with data from earlier varieties of AAVE and SWVE, such as the
WPA (Works Project Administration) recordings of former slaves (Bailey,
Maynor/Cukor-Avila 1991) and recordings of Texas and Louisiana African
Americans and Whites born in the mid to late 1800s (Bailey this volume).
Thus, the Springville project, which encompasses approximately 150 years of
recorded speech from Southern African Americans and Whites, is an on-going
process designed to reconstruct the history of Southern Black and White speech
relationships.

Table 3. Interview dates and contexts for Springville Project informants

(pseudonyms for informants’ names)
Informant DOB Individual Group Site Study Diary
Sara (A/A) 1894 7/21/88
Mabel (W) 1907 2/28/89 3/1/89
Audrey (A/A) 1907 9/97, 11/22/97
Mavis (W) 1907 8/11/88
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

Table 3 (cont.)
Informant DOB Individual Group Site Study Diary
Jimmy (W) 1908 11/22/97
Raymond (W) 1911 2/21/98 8/29/97
Millie (W) 1911 8/11/88
Charlotte (W) 1911 2/21/98
Mary (A/A) 1913 7/18/88 7/18/88, 7/28/88,
7/17/92, 6/28/96
Wallace (A/A) 1913 8/1/88, 8/5/88, 7/18/88, 8/17/88, 2/27/89, 2/28/89,
8/12/88, 3/1/89, 2/27/89, 7/24/94, 3/1/89
1/14/91, 5/25/95, 5/25/95
1/6/99
Reggie (A/A) 1913 8/17/88
Rupert (A/A) 1914 7/28/88 8/1/88, 8/2/88,
8/3/88
Winston (A/A) 1914 8/2/88, 8/3/88
Phil (W) 1914 2/21/98
Stan (W) 1915 2/22/98 7/13/88, 7/21/88, 3/1/89
2/27/89
Sammy (A/A) 1916 8/1/88
Ester (W) 1918 8/7/88
Lupita (M/A) 1918? 8/4/88
Maude (W) 1919 2/21/98
Olive (A/A) 1920 8/29/97, 9/97,
11/22/97
George (A/A) 1920 8/10/88
Mack (W) 1920? 3/2/89
Loretta (W) 1920 2/28/89, 3/1/89,
3/2/89
Joe (A/A) 1924 7/28/88 2/27/89 3/1/89
Slim (A/A) 1932 8/1/88, 8/22/92,
2/21/98
Ray (M/A) 1932 7/29/88 8/1/88
Newman (A/A) 1934 7/29/88, 6/28/96
Pinkie (A/A) 1936 8/2/88, 8/3/88,
8/22/92
Lester (A/A) 1936 3/15/97 6/27/96
Elsie (A/A) 1939 7/28/94 2/28/89
Allen (W) 1940 2/21/98
Lois (A/A) 1941 7/27/94, 5/25/95
Ron (W) 1941 5/25/95
Rudy (A/A) 1944 6/28/96
 Co-existing grammars: AAVE and SWVE 

Informant DOB Individual Group Site Study Diary

Claudia (M/A) 1944 7/12/88
Tommy (A/A) 1945 3/15/97
Buddy (A/A) 1948 2/21/98
Bobby (A/A) 1949 3/15/97, 8/29/97, 8/1/88, 8/2/88,
9/97, 11/22/97 8/8/88, 3/1/89,
3/2/89, 5/25/95,
6/27/96, 2/21/98
Daisy (W) 1949 8/29/97 2/21/98
Pam (W) 1949 3/14/96 8/1/88, 3/2/89
Jolinda (A/A) 1950? 1/12/91
Marcela (M/A) 1952 8/4/88
Roger (W) 1956 2/21/98
Harriet (W) 1958 2/21/98
Vanessa (A/A) 1961 7/12/88, 7/19/88, 3/2/89, 1/12/91, 8/1/88, 8/8/88,
3/1/89, 1/14/91, 8/21/92, 5/25/95, 2/28/89, 3/1/89,
8/22/92, 3/14/96, 5/15/96, 5/16/96, 8/22/92
3/16/97 6/27/96, 3/13/97,
3/14/97, 3/15/97,
3/16/97, 1/5/99
Rachel (A/A) 1961 7/19/88 3/2/89
Florence (A/A) 1963 2/27/89
Lonnie (A/A) 1965 7/28/88 3/13/97, 3/14/97, 7/28/88, 8/1/88,
3/15/97 8/8/88, 3/2/89
Travis (A/A) 1965 7/20/88 8/3/88
Cliff (W) 1965 2/21/98
Erica (A/A) 1967 6/27/96, 3/14/97
Oscar (M/A) 1968? 2/27/89
Ana (M/A) 1969 7/21/88
Amy (W) 1969 1/12/91
Mariana (M/A) 1970 7/13/88
A. J. (A/A) 1971 6/27/96, 3/14/97
Junior (A/A) 1972 7/28/88
Linda (A/A) 1972 8/3/88
Victor (M/A) 1973 8/8/88
Calvin (A/A) 1974 7/20/88 7/28/88, 8/3/88
Charles (A/A) 1974 8/3/88
Teresa (M/A) 1974 8/16/88
Alice (M/A) 1974 5/25/95, 3/96 4/1/96
Nikki (A/A) 1975 8/3/88
Duane (A/A) 1975 6/27/96, 6/28/96
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

Table 3 (cont.)
Informant DOB Individual Group Site Study Diary
Martin (A/A) 1975 7/20/88
Olivia (A/A) 1975 3/15/97
Lamar (A/A) 1976 8/3/88
Samuel (M/A) 1976 7/29/88
Yolanda (A/A) 1977 8/3/88
Tashonda (A/A) 1978 8/3/88
Rolanda (A/A) 1978 3/15/97, 2/22/98
Laura (M/A) 1978 7/12/88
Sheila (A/A) 1979 1/12/91, 6/28/96, 7/18/88, 7/28/88,
3/15/97 2/27/89, 3/2/89,
1/12/91, 7/17/92,
8/21/92, 5/16/96,
6/27/96, 6/28/96,
3/13/97, 3/14/97,
3/15/97, 2/22/98
Lance (A/A) 1980 7/17/92, 8/21/92 8/22/92
Anthony (A/A) 1980 7/18/88, 3/2/89,
1/12/91, 7/27/94,
3/13/97, 3/14/97,
3/15/97
Lashonda (A/A) 1981 8/30/97
Veronica (A/A) 1981 2/22/98
Brandy (A/A) 1982 3/16/97 7/28/88, 3/2/89, 3/96,
1/12/91, 7/27/94, 4/96,
11/16/95, 5/15/96, 9/1/97,
5/16/96, 6/27/96, 9/98,
3/14/97, 8/30/97, 1/15/99
2/22/98, 1/5/99
Samantha (A/A) 1982 7/28/88, 11/16/95, 9/1/97,
5/15/96, 8/30/97, 9/98,
1/5/99 1/15/99
April (W) 1982 11/16/95, 5/15/96,
6/27/96
Tammi (W) 1982 5/15/96
Keesha (A/A) 1983 5/15/96
Leslie (W) 1983 5/15/96
Carol (A/A) 1983 7/27/94
Jamie (A/A) 1983 7/27/94
Misty (A/A) 1984 1/12/91, 4/96
Tina (A/A) 1995 3/14/97, 2/22/98, 9/98,
1/5/99 1/15/99
 Co-existing grammars: AAVE and SWVE 

The present study investigates the relationship between AAVE and SWVE
grammars through a qualitative analysis of 32 grammatical features that illus-
trate changing relationships in the evolution of these varieties of English. The
data for this investigation come from two main sources illustrated in Tables 4
and 5, respectively: information from previous studies of these features and
their distribution in African American and White speech as well as data on
each of these features from seven African American and five White informants
from the Springville project.

Table 4. Selected grammatical features of AAVE and SWVE

Feature Sources Example
st nd
1 /2 person -s Feagin 1979; Bailey/Maynor/Cukor-Avila I likes livin’ out in the
1989; Poplack/Tagliamonte 1989; Mont- country.
gomery et al. 1993; Cukor-Avila 1997
plural verbal -s Atwood 1953; Feagin 1979; Bailey/Maynor/ Those boys works for
Cukor-Avila 1989; Poplack/Tagilamonte me.
1989; Schneider 1989; Montgomery et al.
1993; Montgomery/Fuller 1996; Clarke
1997; Bailey 1997; Wolfram et al. 1997
is for are Feagin 1979; Bailey/Maynor 1985a, 1985b; So many people is
Cukor-Avila 1995 movin’ in.
non-habitual in- Fasold 1972, Wolfram 1974; Bailey/ You don’t be a Lewis
variant be Bassett 1986; Bailey/Maynor 1985a; until you get married.
Rickford 1992; Bailey 1993; Cukor-Avila
1995
for to McDavid/McDavid 1951 Somethin’ for to snack
on later.
a+verb+ing Atwood 1953; Wolfram 1976, 1980, 1988; They’d be happy an’ a-
Bailey 1997 singin’.
would deletion Bailey/Schnebly 1988; McElhinny 1993; They Ø make cheese
Cukor-Avila/Bailey 1997 when I was a boy.
zero subj. rel. pro. Schremp 1995; Tottie/Rey 1997 I got some friends Ø do
that.
singular copula Labov 1969, 1972; Wolfram 1974; Dunlap Bobby Ø not workin’
absence 1974; Feagin 1979; Baugh 1980; Bailey/ this summer.
Maynor 1985a, 1985b, 1987, 1989;
Rickford et al. 1991; Myhill 1995; Hazen
1996; Dannenberg 1997; Walker 1997;
Wolfram et al. 1997; E. Green 1998;
Cukor-Avila 1999
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

Table 4 (cont.)
Feature Sources Example
rd
zero 3 sing. -s Labov et al. 1968; Myhill/Harris 1986; She live right down the
Bailey, Maynor/Cukor-Avila 1989; road.
Poplack/Tagliamonte 1989; Schneider
1989; Rickford 1992; Montgomery et al.
1993; Cukor-Avila 1997; Clarke 1997; Wol-
fram et al. 1997; Godfrey/Tagliamonte
1999; Tagliamonte/Poplack fc
non-recent Rickford 1973; Feagin 1979; Baugh 1983; I been knowin’ her all
perfective been Myhill 1995; Dayton 1996; Labov 1998; L. my life.
Green 1998
be done Baugh 1983; Myhill 1995; Dayton 1996; I come home an’ he be
Labov 1998; Singler 1998 done clean up an’
cooked.
y’all Atwood 1953; Montgomery 1992, 1996; Y’all don’t make any
Bailey 1997; Tillery/Bailey 1998, fc sense.
fixin’ to/fitna Ching 1987; Tillery 1992; Bailey et al. 1996; We’re fixin’ to go to the
Bailey 1997 store.
multiple modals Atwood 1953; Butters 1973; Feagin 1979; I might could help you
Di Paola 1986, 1989; Montgomery 1989; later today.
Fennell 1993; Mishoe/Montgomery 1994; We may couldn’t have
Bailey et al. 1996; Fennell/Butters 1996; the best.
Harris 1996; Montgomery 1996; Bailey
1997
zero pl/2nd Labov 1969, 1972; Wolfram 1974; Feagin You Ø taller than Sheila.
singular 1979; Baugh 1980; Bailey/Maynor 1985a, They Ø gonna leave you
copula absence 1985b, 1987, 1989; Rickford et al. 1991; here.
McElhinny 1993; Hazen 1996; Dannenberg
1997; Walker 1997; Wolfram et al. 1997; E.
Green 1998; Cukor-Avila 1999
was for were Feagin 1979; Wolfram/Sellers 1997 We was at the house all
day.
have/had deletion Bailey/Schnebly 1988; Schneider 1989; That school Ø been
McElhinny 1993; Tagliamonte 1997 there a long time.
irregular Labov et al. 1968; Fasold 1972; Feagin I knowed her when she
preterites 1979; Schneider 1989; Tagliamonte 1991; was a baby.
Cukor-Avila/Bailey 1997
unmarked Labov et al. 1968; Fasold 1972; Feagin They come in here last
preterites 1979; Schneider 1989; Tagliamonte 1991; night.
Rickford 1992; Cukor-Avila/Bailey 1997
 Co-existing grammars: AAVE and SWVE 

Feature Sources Example

inceptive get/ Montgomery 1980; Bean 1991; Bailey 1997 I got to thinkin’ about
got to that.
multiple negation Labov et al. 1968; Feagin 1979; Baugh She don’t never buy
1983; Howe 1997 nothin’.
ain’t Feagin 1979; Schneider 1989; Hazen 1994; I ain’t seen him since
Myhill 1995; Howe 1997; Kautzsch 2000 yesterday.
existential it Wolfram/Fasold 1974; Feagin 1979; Baugh It’s one lady that lives in
1983; Schneider 1989 town.
perfective done Atwood 1953; Feagin 1979; Baugh 1983; I done drink all my cof-
Dayton 1996; Labov 1998 fee now.
demonstrative Mufwene 1998 Them peaches are ripe.
them
ain’t for didn’t Labov et al. 1968; Fasold 1972; Baugh I ain’t even had a price
1983; Schneider 1989; Myhill 1995 on it.
habitual invariant Labov 1972; Fasold 1972; Dunlap 1974; He be in the house all
be Baugh 1983; Bailey/Bassett 1986; Bailey/ summer.
Maynor 1987, 1989, Myhill 1988; Rickford
1992; Cukor-Avila 1995; Cukor-Avila/
Bailey 1995b; Dayton 1996
zero poss. -s Labov et al. 1968; Wolfram 1969; Schnei- She think she everybody
der 1989; Rickford 1992; Myhill 1995 mama.
zero plural -s Labov et al. 1968; Wolfram 1969; Kessler You want some pea?
1972; Schneider 1989; Rickford 1992;
Poplack/Tagliamonte 1994
be+verb+ing Labov 1972; Fasold 1972; Baugh 1983; Those boys be messin’
Bailey/Maynor 1987, 1989; Cukor-Avila with me.
1995; Cukor-Avila/Bailey 1995b; Myhill
1995; Dayton 1996
innov had+past Cukor-Avila 1995; Cukor-Avila/Bailey Today I had went to
1995b; Rickford/Rafal 1996 work.

The real and apparent time data shown in Table 5 suggest that the grammars of
AAVE and SWVE speakers in Springville were much more similar (at least for the
32 features analyzed) in the first half of the 1900s than they are today. In order
to illustrate the changing relationship of these vernaculars as they have evolved
over time, Table 5 is divided into five sections, each one representing a different
component of the relationship between AAVE and SWVE in Springville:
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

1. features that are shared in older varieties of AAVE and SWVE but that are
not shared in younger varieties;
2. features that are stable over time in AAVE and shared in older varieties of
SWVE;
3. features that are stable over time in AAVE and SWVE;

Table 5: The relationship between AAVE and SWVE grammar in Springville

AAVE SPEAKERS
Mary Wallace Lois Bobby Vanessa Sheila Brandy
Grammatical Feature (1913) (1913) (1941) (1949) (1961) (1979) (1982)
1st/2nd person -s – + + + + – –
non-hab. invariant be + + + + + – –
for to – + + + + – –
a+verb+ing + + + + + – –
would deletion + + + + +/- +/– +/–
plural verbal -s + + + + + (+) (+)
is for are + + + + + [+] [+]
sing. copula absence + + + + + + +
zero 3rd sing. -s + + + + + + +
zero subj. rel. pro. + + + + + (+) (+)
non-recent perf. been + + + + + + +
be done – – – - + ? +
y’all + + + + + + +
fixin’to/fitna + + + + + + +
multiple modals + – + + + + –
zero pl/2nd sing. copula + + + + + + +
was for were + + + + + + +
have/had deletion + + + + + + +
irregular preterites + + + + + + +
unmarked preterites + + + + + + +
inceptive get to/got to + + – + + + –
multiple negation + + + + + + +
ain’t + + + + + + +
existential it + + + + + + +
perfective done + + + + + + +
demonstrative them + + + + + + +
ain’t for didn’t + + – + + + +
hab. invariant be + + + + + + +
zero possessive -s – + + – + + +
zero plural -s – + + + + + +
be+verb+ing – – –/+ + + + +
innovative had+past – – –/+ + + + +
( ) used rarely; [ ] used mostly after existentials & compound NPs; { } used mostly bef. gonna &
 Co-existing grammars: AAVE and SWVE 

4. features found only in AAVE; and

5. innovative features of AAVE that evolved since WWII.
The first lightly shaded section of Table 5 illustrates seven features shared in
the speech of older African Americans and Whites which have disappeared
in the speech of younger Whites born after WWII and have disappeared or are

SWVE SPEAKERS
Grammatical Feature Mabel Ester Ron Pam April
(1907) (1917) (1941) (1949) (1982)
1st/2nd person -s – – + – –
non-hab. invariant be – – – – –
for to – – – – –
a+verb+ing – + – – –
would deletion + + – – –
plural verbal -s – + + – –
is for are + + – – –
sing. copula absence + – – – –
zero 3rd sing. -s + – + – –
zero subj. rel. pro. + – – – –
non-recent perf. been + – – – –
be done – – – – –
y’all + + + + +
fixin’to/fitna + + + + +
multiple modals + – ? ? ?
zero pl/2nd sing. copula + + + – {+}
was for were + + + + –
have/had deletion + + + – +
irregular preterites + + + – +
unmarked preterites + + + – +
inceptive get to/got to – + + – –
multiple negation + + + – +
ain’t – – + – +
existential it + + – + –
perfective done + – + + +
demonstrative them + + + – +
ain’t for didn’t – – – – –
hab. invariant be – – – – –
zero possessive -s – – – – –
zero plural -s – – – – –
be+verb+ing – – – – –
innovative had+past – – – – –
v+ing; +/– recessive; –/+ innovative
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

disappearing in the speech of young African Americans, however, somewhat

later than in the speech of Springville Whites. For example, auxiliary deletion
(in this case deleted past habitual would) is a recessive feature in the speech of
the post-WWII generations of AAVE and SWVE speakers; in fact, would as a
past habitual rarely occurs in the speech of the youngest speakers since, for
them, would in this context has been replaced by the grammaticalized form
useta which is undeletable. Similarly, plural verbal -s and is for are occur only
sporadically in the speech of the youngest AAVE speakers. Previous research on
the use of verbal -s (including singular and plural -s) for young Springville
speakers suggests a correlation between urban/rural network ties and the use
of -s: verbal -s usage for adolescents with strong rural ties tends to pattern simi-
larly to the usage for older speakers whereas adolescents who identify with ur-
ban values and reject rural life show a higher instance of verbal -s absence (see
Cukor-Avila 1995, 1997 for more in-depth analysis of the loss of verbal -s in
younger Springville speech).
As Table 5 indicates, is for are is found primarily after existentials (e.g.,
‘‘There’s two or three new kids in the eighth grade’’) and compound NPs (e.g.,
‘‘Barbara Bush an’ bein’ a president is the firs’ thing he thought of ’’) when used
by young AAVE speakers. This usage is common in other speech varieties of
English as well. Finally, although there are no recorded instances of 1st/2nd
person -s, non-habitual be, and for to in the speech of the two oldest SWVE
speakers, previous research on Southern White vernaculars has documented
their existence in comparable informants (cf. McDavid/McDavid 1951;
Feagin 1979; Bailey/Maynor 1985b); therefore these features are included in
this section.
The second darker shaded section includes five features. The first four fea-
tures — singular copula absence, zero third person singular -s, zero subject
relative pronouns, and non-recent perfective been — are stable across genera-
tions of AAVE speakers, but are shared at a much lower rate of frequency only
by older SWVE speakers. In SWVE, these features are typically associated with
older, rural, working class speakers (Feagin 1979). The fifth feature listed, be
done, is not found in the speech of older AAVE and SWVE speakers in
Springville; similarly, Myhill (1995) finds no occurrences of this feature in the
recordings of the former slaves. However, be done has been attested in the
speech of older Liberian settlers (Singler 1998) and it also occurs in the speech
of elderly LAGS informants. Be done does occur in the speech of younger
Springville residents and is consistent with the innovative use of this feature
outlined by Dayton (1996) and Labov (1998: 132):
 Co-existing grammars: AAVE and SWVE 

The meaning that can best be assigned to it [be done] combines relative location
in time with ‘inevitable result,’ and might then be termed a future resultative. It is
then a member of the modal system rather than the aspect system, since it deals
with the degree of reality attributed to an event.

The first two sections of Table 5 also illustrate variability within the grammars
of the two oldest SWVE speakers, Mabel and Ester. Even though they have
similar social histories–they both are Type I speakers, they have always lived in
rural areas, and both of their husbands worked as tenant farmers–Mabel’s
speech is much more similar to the speech of older AAVE speakers than is
Ester’s. Their vernaculars share many features associated with SWVE, such as
is for are, was for were, demonstrative them, and irregular and unmarked
preterites (listed in the third section of Table 5), yet only Mabel has a fair
amount of the features typical of AAVE, such as third person singular copula
absence and non-recent perfective been. She also consistently lacks tense mark-
ing on third person singular present tense verbs with rates of -s absence equal
to that of the older AAVE speakers in Springville. These data demonstrate the
importance of looking at individual speakers even within the same generation
and from the same community since individual differences, which may reveal
important facts about language, are often masked by the effects of group analy-
sis (see Cukor-Avila 1995 for a more detailed discussion of individual and
group analyses). Therefore, the data suggest co-existing grammars within gen-
erations of SWVE, a situation that must be accounted for in comparisons of
African American and White vernacular speech. This same situation is relevant
for AAVE speakers as well, as will be shown below.
The large, unshaded third section of Table 5 includes 14 features which
occur across all generations of Springville AAVE and SWVE speakers. These are
stable features of Southern vernacular speech which exhibit some individual
variation within the SWVE speakers born after 1941. For example, two estab-
lished features of SWVE, multiple modals and ain’t, are not accounted for in
the speech of three of the SWVE speakers. This could either result from the
topics of conversation (more than likely the cause for the lack of multiple
modals which have a low frequency rate) or possibly caused by style shifting,
as in the case of ain’t. Despite these inconsistencies, the overall occurrence of
these 14 features by both AAVE and SWVE speakers has remained steady over
time.
The fourth section of Table 5 includes four grammatical features unattested
in the speech of Springville SWVE speakers. Except for habitual invariant be,
which previous research by Bailey/Maynor (1985b) and Bailey/Bassett (1986)
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

120

100
Hab. be2/be2
80

60

40
Be+V+ing/hab be2
20

0
Ex-slaves Adults Pre-WWI Pre WWII Post WWII Post 1970
1885–1910 1910–17 1930–44 1945–65 1970–82

Generation

Figure 1. Semantic and syntactic reanalysis of be over time

shows to occur in older Type I SWVE speakers, these features have historically
been associated only with AAVE (cf. Fasold 1981 and Myhill 1995).
The final section of Table 5 lists two features which occur only in AAVE yet
not in the speech of the older generations studied. In fact, these features only
begin to emerge in Springville AAVE around the time of WWII or sometime
thereafter. Previous research on the semantic and syntactic reanalysis of be
(Bailey/Maynor 1987, 1989; Bailey 1993; Cukor-Avila/Bailey 1995b) and the
grammaticalization of had+past (Cukor-Avila 1995; Cukor-Avila/Bailey 1995b)
has shown WWII to be a pivotal period in the evolution of AAVE, resulting in
innovative changes in the grammar. Figure 1 illustrates the reanalysis of be over
time with data from the former slaves (Bailey/Maynor 1987, 1989), African
American adults born between 1885–1910 (Bailey 1993), and Springville. The
top line traces the semantic development of be over time. In the span of 150
years, be has become grammaticalized to serve as a marker of durative/habitual
meaning. The bottom line indicates be+V+ing as a percentage of all habitual be
uses. As Figure 1 suggests, be+V+ing to mark present habitual actions began to
emerge just prior to WWII and has increased steadily since that time. Thus, the
form and function of invariant be has grammaticalized over time so that for the
youngest Springville speakers, be is only used in habitual contexts and most
often before V+ing.
 Co-existing grammars: AAVE and SWVE 

Figure 2 illustrates the grammaticalization of another feature of AAVE, the use

of had+past as a past tense marker. This has been a relatively understudied
feature of AAVE until recently (cf. Cukor-Avila 1995; Cukor-Avila/Bailey
1995b; Rickford/Rafal 1996). Some examples of the distribution of had+past in
the speech of Springville speakers over time are listed in Figure 3.

90
80 78
70
60
50
40 38
30
22
20
10
0
Pre WWI Pre WWII Post WWII Post 1970
1919–17 1930–44 1945–65 1970–82
Generation

Figure 2. Innovative had+past over time for four

generations of Springville AAVE speakers

As Table 5 suggests, had+past began to grammaticalize in the speech of

Springville AAVE speakers during the same period as the reanalysis of invariant
be–around the time of WWII. As Figure 2 shows, 22% of the occurrences of
had+past (or what is referred to in grammar texts as the ‘past perfect’ or ‘plu-
perfect’) in the speech of Springville speakers born between 1930–44 are inno-
vative; this increases to 38% for speakers born in the two generations after the
war and then significantly increases to 78% for the youngest generation of
Springville residents. The only other study of had+past has suggested that this
feature is age-graded; in other words, that as speakers mature the use of this
feature will decrease (see Rickford and Rafal 1996). However, confirmation that
the use of had+past is an innovative change over time rather than an age-
graded feature is illustrated in Table 6 with longitudinal data from a case study
of a Springville adolescent, Sheila.
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

a. narrative abstract/orientation clause

I was goin’ with him. One day he had made me mad an’ we were fightin’. An’
I had got real, real, real red. An’ uh, that’s when he started callin’ me Lil’ Red.
b. narrative evaluation
So I had to argue him down ‘bout my money. An’ I say, You don’ add no tax
on no food. He had lied on that tax. An’ I say, You gonna give me my
money. He hand my money back.
c. narrative complicating action
I was goin’ with this boy, an’ his girlfrien’ she hid behin’ the house an’ then,
you know, called him out. An’ uh, they started fightin’. So I had wen’ out
there to see what was goin’ on an’ me an’ her started fightin’.
d. single past event
S: I wanted to go to Imperial today. I had tol’ Daryl Wayne today.
V: Ohhh they have big buffets.
S: I had wanted that shrimp fried rice they be havin’.
e. listing (unsequenced events in the past)
Now Mama you know that big ol’ book. We had went aroun’ Springville. We
had got Miss Loretta an’ Bonnie to talk about it. An’ they had came to the
school house an’ we had wrote a report on it.
Figure 3. Examples of innovative had+past in various discourse contexts

When Sheila was first recorded in 1988, innovative had+past did not occur in
her speech. When she became a teenager, she began to reject her rural lifestyle
in favor of urban cultural values. As her social networks changed so did her use
of urban vernacular grammar. By 1991/92, the use of had+past to mean simple
past occurred often in Sheila’s speech, especially in the most innovative
context–the expression of simple past events (see Figure 3). The frequency of
occurrence of had+past has not significantly changed over time in Sheila’s
speech, as can be seen in the data from the 1996/97 recordings. In fact, as in-
novative had+past has become a stable feature in her speech, it has become

Table 6. Innovative had+past over time for Sheila (b. 1979)

Year Total past Total PP Total innov. % innov. had + % innov. had +
forms had+past past of total past past of total PP
1988/’89 148 1 0 0% 0%
1991/’92 283 51 38 13% 75%
1996/’97 858 98 85 10%* 87%**
*Decrease is not significant **increase is not significant
 Co-existing grammars: AAVE and SWVE 

more associated with simple past events as Table 7 illustrates (see Cukor-Avila/
Bailey 1995b and Cukor-Avila 1997 for a more detailed discussion of the evo-
lution of had+past in Sheila’s speech). The data on had+past, similar to the
data on present tense be, strongly suggest re-analysis in the past tense marking
system leading to an independent (independent of SWVE) grammatical devel-
opment in AAVE (cf. Cukor-Avila/Bailey 1997 for an analysis of past tense
marking in AAVE over time).

Table 7. Discourse distribution of innovative had+past over time in the speech

of Sheila (b. 1979)
Year Abstract/ Evaluation Complicating Single event* Listing*
orien. clause action
1991/’92 11 (29%) 0 8 (21%) 7 (18%) 12 (32%)
1996/’97 21 (25%) 1 (1%) 26 (31%) 34 (40%) 3 (4%)
*Single event and listing occurrences are outside of narrative clauses

Of the 32 grammatical features listed in Table 5, 26, or 81%, are features that
have been shared, at one time or another, by both AAVE and SWVE speakers in
Springville. Moreover, nearly half of the features (those listed in section three)
are still characteristic of both varieties. Only six of the features studied are unique
to AAVE, at least two of which have emerged within the past 50 years. This sug-
gests that in the recent past (mid nineteenth/early twentieth century), the gram-
mars of AAVE and SWVE were much more similar than they were different and
that it is only over the last few decades that change has caused an independent
development in the grammar of AAVE (see Bailey/Thomas 1998 and Bailey this
volume for evidence of a parallel process in the phonological systems of AAVE
and SWVE). The question to ask then is how representative of AAVE and SWVE
grammars in general are the Springville data? Table 8, which incorporates the
data from Springville with the data from other studies of AAVE and SWVE
(listed in Table 4), in a comparison over time, begins to provide the answer.

. An overview of the relationship between AAVE and SWVE

Table 8 illustrates the relationship between AAVE and SWVE in the pre- and
post-WWII periods as well as the evolution of each of these varieties over time.
These data suggest that there were many more shared features in the grammars
of early AAVE and SWVE speakers than there are for contemporary speakers;
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

only three features — ain’t for didn’t and the absence of possessive and plural
-s — are unaccounted for in the literature on older varieties of SWVE. Al-
though contemporary AAVE and SWVE share many features (e.g., irregular
and unmarked preterites, auxiliary deletion, perfective done, and demonstrative
them), earlier shared features (e.g., habitual be, copula absence, plural verbal -s,

Table 8. Relationship between the grammars of early and contemporary AAVE

and SWVE (adapted from studies mentioned in Table 4 plus Springville study)
Grammatical feature
1st/2nd person -s
non-hab. invariant be
for to
a+verb+ing
would deletion
plural verbal -s
is for are
sing. copula absence
zero 3rd sing. -s
zero subj. rel. pronouns
non-recent perf. been
be done
y’all
fixin’to/fitna
multiple modals
zero pl/2nd sing. copula
was for were
have/had deletion
irregular preterites
unmarked preterites
inceptive get to/go to
multiple negation
ain’t
existential it
perfective done
demonstrative them
ain’t for didn’t
hab. invariant be
zero possessive -s
zero plural -s
be+verb+ing
innovative had+past
( ) LC/WC speech only; [ ] primarily after existentials; / / sporadic use; { } primarily before gonna,
v+ing; +/– recessive
Early AAVE Early SWVE
1900–45 1900–45
+ (+)
+ (+)
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ (+)
+ (+)
+ +
+ (+)
/+/ /+/
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ –
+ (+)
+ –
+ –
– –
– –
Contemp. Contemp.
AAVE 1945– SWVE 1945–
– –
– –
– –
/+/ –
+/– –
/+/ –
[+] [+]
+ –
+ –
+ (+)
+ –
+ –
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ {+}
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ +
+ –
+ –
+ –
+ –
+ –
+ –
 Co-existing grammars: AAVE and SWVE 

and zero third person singular -s) are found only in the grammars of contem-
porary AAVE speakers and are not attested in the data from post-WWII SWVE
speech.
Table 8 also suggests that AAVE and SWVE have developed along different
trajectories. Contemporary AAVE has retained many of the grammatical fea-
tures common in the speech of pre-WWII generations; in fact, the only features
which are not documented in contemporary speech are 1st/2nd person -s and for
to. Other features, such as a-prefixing and plural verbal -s occur sporadically
as does the deletion of past habitual would. This would, as discussed earlier, is
receding mainly because it is being replaced by younger speakers with used to
or useta, which is not a deletable form. Post-WWII generations of AAVE speak-
ers have also re-analyzed existing grammatical forms (discussed above), as in
the case of habitual be and had+past. The evolution of be done is less clear since
its use is sporadic for the pre-WWII AAVE and SWVE speakers and unattested
in previous research on nineteenth-century AAVE (cf. Myhill 1995). Contem-
porary SWVE grammar maintains its ties to earlier SWVE with the use of mul-
tiple modals, perfective done, was for were, and irregular and unmarked
preterites; however, other features which SWVE once shared with AAVE are
not found in the grammars of younger SWVE speakers.
Thus, the data in Table 8 suggest that the relationship over time between
the grammars of Springville African Americans and Whites outlined in Table
5 can be generalized to a large extent for AAVE and SWVE. Younger genera-
tions of AAVE speakers have substantially augmented the grammars of African
Americans born before WWII while younger generations of SWVE speakers
have lost some of the more stigmatized vernacular features without gaining any
of the new features that have emerged in AAVE.

. The evolution of AAVE grammar

Table 9 presents an historical overview of the evolution of AAVE grammar after

1880 with evidence from both recorded and written sources. The first seven
features in the lightly shaded area are features that remained stable in AAVE for
approximately 100 years, up until the middle of the twentieth century. These are
the features that are either receding or have disappeared in the speech of post-
WWII AAVE speakers. The slightly darker shaded area represents the largest
proportion of the grammatical features, all of which have remained stable over
time. The two innovative features of contemporary AAVE, be+V+ing and inno-
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

vative had+past, are shown in the darker shaded area. The data suggest that both
of these innovative features emerged some 50–60 years ago.
While contemporary AAVE clearly shares many features with earlier AAVE,
it seems clear that it is being transformed by new developments as well. In fact,
the data from Table 9 does not actually reveal all of the changes taking place.
For instance, although Table 9 shows zero copula for all varieties of AAVE, an
on-going investigation of the constraints on copula absence over time in the

Table 9. Evolution of the AAVE grammatical system

Grammatical Feature 1850–75 1875–1900 1900–45 1945–present
st nd
1 /2 person -s + + +/– –
non-hab. invariant be + + + +/–
for to + + + –
a+verb+ing + + + +/–
would deletion + + + +/–
plural verbal -s + + +/– (-)
is for are + + +/– [-]
sing. copula absence + + + +
zero 3rd sing. -s + + + +
zero subj. rel. pronouns + + + +
non-recent perf. been (+) + + +
be done – (+) (+) +
you all/yall (+) + + +
fixin’to/fitna – + + +
multiple modals – ? + +
zero pl/2nd sing. copula + + + +
was for were + + + +
have/had deletion + + + +
irregular preterites + + + +
unmarked preterites + + + +
inceptive get to/go to + + + +
multiple negation + + + +
ain’t + + + +
existential it + + + +
perfective done + + + +
demonstrative them + + + +
ain’t for didn’t +* ? + +
hab. invariant be – + + +
zero possessive -s +* (+) + +
zero plural -s (+) + + +
be+verb+ing – – –/+ +
innovative had+past – – –/+ +
*Schneider (1989) finds evidence for ain’t for didn’t and zero possessive -s in the Ex-Slave Narratives
while Myhill (1995) finds no occurrences of these features in the Ex-Slave Recordings.
( ) used infrequently; [ ] primarily after existentials; +/– recessive; –/+ innovative
 Co-existing grammars: AAVE and SWVE 

Springville corpus suggests that there has been significant change for this fea-
ture during the last half of the twentieth century.

. Copula absence over time

The copula has been one of the most important sites for work on the origins
of African American Vernacular English. In particular, the effects of the follow-
ing grammatical environment on copula absence have been crucial in attempts
by linguists to argue a creole origins hypothesis. Almost 30 years of copula
research has confirmed the ordering of gonna, V+ing, predicate loca-
tive/predicate adjective, and NP in the constraint hierarchy for the effects of the
following grammatical environment on copula absence. The ordering of predi-
cate locatives and adjectives has been a source of controversy though, with
different analyses finding different orderings for these environments. However,
it is the ordering of predicate locative/predicate adjective with respect to one
another that has been singled out by researchers as a key factor in determining
a creole ancestry for AAVE. Scholars such as Baugh (1979, 1980), Holm (1984),
Rickford/Blake (1990), and Rickford (1998) have argued that an AAVE con-
straint ordering which shows higher copula absence rates for following predi-
cate adjectives than for predicate locatives parallels similar constraints in Carib-
bean Anglophone creoles and would strongly suggest creole origins for AAVE.
These researchers point to the fact that in African languages and in creoles,
such as Jamaican Creole and Gullah, adjectives are a subclass of verbs and,
consequently, would not require a preceding copula (Holm 1984: 102).
A recent analysis of copula absence in Springville (Cukor-Avila 1999)
strongly suggests that sub-categorical differences within the adjective category
account for the variation seen in the constraint ordering between predicate
adjectives and predicate locatives that have been shown in the literature on the
AAVE copula. Tables 10 and 11 show the results of analyses of the internal
structure of the adjective category which investigate whether the type of adjec-
tive (stative, non-stative, or participial) has an effect on copula presence or
absence. As can be seen in Table 10, the percentages of zero copula before
statives and participials are quite similar for the pre- and post-WWII genera-
tions; however, the percentage of zero copula before non-stative adjectives is
significantly higher for the post-WWII speakers. Table 11 illustrates the results
of a VARBRUL analysis on these data. The results shown in Table 11 provide
strong confirmation of the differences in the use of zero copula before non-
stative adjectives and also of the inter-generational differences in the relation-
ships among adjective sub-categories. Thus, these data suggest that the con-
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

straints on copula absence before adjectives have changed over time, with verb-
like adjectives strongly favoring absence and steady-state noun-like adjectives
favoring the full or contracted copula. These data further suggest that the cop-
ula system in AAVE is not a static system, but one which has evolved over time
and is still in the process of development.

Table 10. Percent of copula presence and absence preceding

stative, non-stative, and participial adjectives for two genera-
tions of Springville residents (totals without it, that, and what
as subjects)
Stative Non-stative Participial
Pre-WWII is/are 59 58 31
Ø 41 42 69
N* (186) (19) (42)
Post-WWII is/are 58 23 28
Ø 42 77 72
N* (358) (65) (47)
*Totals excluding occurrences of be+adj.

Table 11. VARBRUL factor weight analysis for

copula absence preceding stative, non-stative, and
participial adjectives for two generations of
Springville residents
Adjective type Pre-WWII* Post-WWII**
Stative .46 .43
Non-stative .36 .84
Participial .71 .81
*that, what, there, and we were knockouts; it was eliminated from
the final analysis
**what and there were knockouts; it and that were eliminated
from the final analysis

. Conclusion

The data over time from Springville suggest that different sociohistorical con-
texts correlate closely with linguistic differences in both AAVE and SWVE.
Table 12 outlines some of those correlates. In the pre-WWII period there was
 Co-existing grammars: AAVE and SWVE 

significant contact between African Americans and Whites and, as a result,

there were many shared linguistic features. The post-WWII era saw a signifi-
cant reduction in the contact between African Americans and Whites and,
consequently, a reduction in the linguistic similarities. It should be clear that
making generalizations about the relationship between AAVE and SWVE gram-
mars is difficult at best. Both varieties are changing over time as reflexes of their
sociohistorical contexts. As the evidence on changes in the copula system
shows, these vernaculars continue to develop. As a result, all statements about
Black/White speech relationships are subject to revision.

Table 12: Social situations and linguistic correlates over time in AAVE and
SWVE
Pre-WW II Linguistic Correlates
A lot of contact between African Ameri- 1. AAVE and SWVE shared many grammati-
cans and Southern Whites because of cal features: plural verbal -s, Ø 2nd sing/
working conditions (i.e., through tenancy plural copula, is for are, ain’t, was for were,
and sharecropping) negative concord, irregular and unmarked
preterites, perfective done, Ø 3rd singular -s
2. AAVE has some grammatical features
which are infrequent or not shared in
SWVE: Ø 3rd sing. copula, habitual be, re-
mote time been
Post-WW II Linguistic Correlates
Reduced contact between African Ameri- 1 Many shared older grammatical features
cans and Southern Whites because of the are still shared: was for were, ain’t, demon-
development of mechanized farming, the strative them, perfective done, multiple ne-
influx of Mexican labor, and the subse- gation, irregular and unmarked preterites
quent development of inner cities. 2. Some shared older grammatical features
have all but disappeared in both AAVE and
SWVE: plural verbal -s, is for are
3. Some shared older grammatical features
are primarily found in AAVE: Ø 2nd sing/
plural copula, Ø 3rd sing. -s
*4. Some shared older features are primarily
found in SWVE: no existent data
5. Some older grammatical features of AAVE
that weren’t shared in SWVE are still pres-
ent in AAVE: Ø 3rd sing. copula, remote
time been, ain’t for didn’t
6 Grammatical features have evolved in
AAVE that are not present in SWVE:
be+V+ing, had+past
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

Notes
. The research for this paper was supported by a series of grants from the National Science
Foundation (BNS-8812552, BNS-90099232, and BNS-9109695), the University of
Michigan Block Grant, Texas A&M University, and the University of North Texas Re-
search Initiation Grants.
. For example, of the 1162 informants interviewed for the Linguistic Atlas of the Middle
and South Atlantic States (LAMSAS), only 41 African Americans from five
states–Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia–were included
in the survey (Kretzschmar et al. 1994). Of course other groups were also under-
represented in the atlas surveys, most notably women and younger members of target
communities. As Kretzschmar et al. (1994: 17) explain, these were the guidelines set forth
in the original fieldwork design. ‘‘A third principle excluded African-Americans and other
non-Whites. While Kurath was somewhat more progressive than his time in his allow-
ance of some place in the survey for African-Americans, LAMSAS was typical of its era
in the exclusion of non-Whites from the general grid.’’ This issue was addressed some
15 years later in the design of the Linguistic Atlas of the Gulf States (LAGS), where a
much more representative sample of non-White, non-male populations were surveyed.
. Much of the early research on AAVE compared its grammar with ‘‘standard’’ English
grammar spoken in urban areas in the Northeast. Bailey/Maynor (1987, 1989) suggest
that this comparison is invalid since the origins of Northern AAVE are in the rural South.
They argue that in order to accurately compare grammars in Black and White speech,
data from Whites in the rural South are needed.
. The categorization of informants by types originates with the Linguistic Atlas of New
England (Kurath 1949) where the distinction was made between Type I, II, and III speak-
ers. Type I informants live primarily in insular, rural communities. They typically have
few, if any, social contacts outside of their communities, mainly because of limited travel/
work experiences. Type I speakers also have limited educational experiences, the majority
of whom only attend school up to the middle-school grades.
. Table 3 lists four interview contexts: individual, group (includes both adolescent and
adult peer groups), site studies, and diary studies. Site studies focus on speech at sites of
community interaction rather than on the speech of individuals. Diary studies are record-
ings made by informants who have been given tape recorders. They are similar to talking
diaries, hence the name diary studies. Informants are described as ‘‘A/A’’ (African Ameri-
can), ‘‘M/A’’ (Mexican American), and ‘‘W’’ (White).
. See Winford (1998) for an overview and discussion of many of the features listed in
Table 4.
. The Springville data include two examples of be done in the speech of an African Ameri-
can male born in 1932, but his data are not included in the analysis for the present study.
. When I presented this paper at the conference, I had included be done in the last section
of Table 5, suggesting that it was an innovative feature of AAVE rather than one that was
 Co-existing grammars: AAVE and SWVE 

at one time shared by both AAVE and SWVE speakers. Since that time, John Victor
Singler informed me of the presence of be done in older speakers of Liberian Settler Eng-
lish and Guy Bailey suggested I consult the LAGS data for evidence from older AAVE and
SWVE speakers. Be done does in fact occur in the speech of older African American and
White LAGS informants. For example, ‘‘Nex’ morning that cotton be done popped outta
there ’’(85 year-old White male from Arkansas) and ‘‘All those houses here got people
that supposed to be done come torn ‘em down’’ (72 year-old African American male from
Florida). I would like to thank both John and Guy for bringing these sources to my atten-
tion.
. An example from Vanessa illustrates this usage: ‘‘He might be done stop gardenin’ now
he got his woman.’’
. Bailey/Maynor/Cukor-Avila (1989) discuss the history of verbal -s marking in African
American and White vernacular speech. Their data suggest that present tense marking
was variable up until the late 1800s/early 1900s because of competing grammatical con-
straints–NP/PRO (where -s was favored with preceding NPs and Ø with preceding PRO)
and subject-verb agreement. In White speech, subject-verb agreement became the sole
constraint while both constraints have all but disappeared over time in AAVE. Data on
African Diaspora varieties of early AAVE (Poplack/Tagliamonte 1989, 1994) suggest a
similar history for -s. (See also Cukor-Avila 1997 for an account of verbal -s over time
in Springville speech.)
. Both Labov et al. (1968) and Wolfram/Fasold (1974) comment on the frequent use of
past perfect in the speech of urban AAVE speakers, yet neither of these studies analyzes
its function within the past tense system.
. Data for this period come from Schneider (1989); Bailey/Maynor/Cukor-Avila (1991);
Poplack/Tagliamonte (1994); and Myhill (1995).
. In a footnote in his recent article on the creole origins of AAVE, Rickford (1998: 191)
relates a personal communication with Guy Bailey in which Bailey suggests a non-English
source for copula absence in AAVE because of the conditioning factor of following gram-
matical environment on copula use. ‘‘The fact that the following environment matters
at all is sufficient to prove that this comes from something other than English. In English,
the form of the verb always depends on the subject. Even in those dialects that do not
have subject-verb concord, the form of the verb is determined by whether the subject is
an NP or PRO. It is not surprising that there should be some discrepancies among AAVE
and various creoles in regard to the exact effects of the following environment. After all,
they’ve had several centuries of independent development.’’
. Both Lakoff (1966, 1970) and Givón (1970, 1984) draw structural parallels between adjec-
tives and verbs in terms of stativity. They argue that stative adjectives (tall or rich) are
linguistically similar to stative verbs (know or want) and that non-stative adjectives (good
or jealous) are linguistically similar to non-stative verbs (run or talk). See also Wetzer
(1992) for a discussion of ‘‘nouny and verby’’ advectivals.
. In a VARBRUL analysis, if the factor weight is less than .50, then the use of a particular
 Patricia Cukor-Avila

form is disfavored whereas factor weights above .50 are considered to have an effect on
the occurrence of the form in question.

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 Chapter 5

The voice of the ancestors:

New evidence on 19th-century precursors to
20th-century African American English

David Sutcliffe
Universitat Pompeu Fabra

. Introduction: Attestations of a creole-like vernacular in the ex-slave

recordings

In the light of evidence that has been emerging over recent years, we can now
say that the creole-like grammar seen to be operative in modern African Ameri-
can English (AAE) may, after all, have an earlier precedent. A rich part of that
evidence are the borderline and overtly creole features I have detected in the
ex-slave recordings (ESR). Fine-grained searching through the ESR corpus
(audio recordings of African Americans born during the last years of slavery
made under the auspices of the Works Project Administration) has revealed
traces of a creole-like 19th-century plantation vernacular that was apparently
spoken in East Texas and other places outside the recognized Gullah area not
so much prior to AAE as in close contact with it. Since October 1995, I have
heard some 90 attestations (i.e., isolated creole-derived morphemes, or micro-
switches, consisting of two or more morphemes) (see Appendix).
Most of the ESR material had already been published in a seminally impor-
tant volume, The Emergence of Black English (Bailey/Maynor/Cukor-Avila
1991), henceforth EBE. This book was consciously orientated towards ‘‘stan-
dard’’ English. For example, where contributors disagreed on how to transcribe
a given phrase, the more standard version was chosen as a matter of policy and,
thus, standard ‘‘trumped’’ non-standard. So while the discussion in the book
is of lasting interest and the transcripts were scrupulously checked and re-
checked, little of the deeper basilectal AAE straying over the border into creole
actually registers in the transcripts.
 David Sutcliffe

John Rickford, one of the writers contributing to that volume, looked at the
problem of reliability in the first draft transcripts made of three of the ex-slaves:
Fountain Hughes, Charlie Smith, and Wallace Quarterman. Quarterman in
particular was an interesting case since he, from Skidaway Island on the
Georgia coast, was the only recognized Gullah speaker in the sample. Rickford
noted that Quarterman slipped in and out of Gullah during the interview re-
corded in 1935, but the non-standard features produced by this speaker were
overwhelmingly underreported in previous transcripts. Some of the features
were restored in subsequent drafts, but others were not, precisely because they
did not survive the editing process which worked efficiently in other respects.
This is not surprising since several of Rickford’s colleagues who were involved
in the transcribing were not familiar with or had not worked directly with
Gullah or a related creole. Rickford set to work on this particular recording,
correcting and recovering the Gullah verbatim. The results are discussed in his
chapter in EBE, ‘‘Representativeness and Reliability’’ (1991). Unfortunately,
Rickford did not look at the other recordings in the ESR corpus in the same
detail; so, I have set out to do this.
The problem noticed by Rickford is all the greater with the other ESR
archives for one reason: the ex-slaves who speak in them are not from the
recognized Gullah area. If the creole was not seen where it would be expected,
how much less likely that it would be perceived where it was less expected or
even, in the case of several contributors, absolutely not expected at all?
Nonetheless, it is not true that the transcripts produced by the original EBE
team registered no overt creole or deep AAE basilect features. There are at least
two places in the transcripts where key examples occur — both are from the
1941 interview recorded with Laura Smalley who was born in East Texas circa
1853. Firstly, there is the use of ‘‘he’’ for ‘‘she’’:
(1) Woo-wee! He [White landlord] was fractious but he was good people.
An ef, uh, he’d been aroun’, been drinkin’ that way, his wife wouldn
stay at the house an’ he come to the fiel’. He hadda come with him
[EBE transcribes: ‘‘He’d have to come with him.’’] because she know he
gonna have a roun’ with some of the colored folks. (EBE LS: 575–80)
Notice also the use of ‘‘know’’ with past tense reference. Secondly, there is an
instance of -dem associative plural marker not in the general transcript but
transcribed thus by one of the contributors, John Singler (1991):
(2) Mama-dem [EBE transcribes ‘‘Mama an’ them.’’] din know where
tuh go, you see, after freedom broke. (EBE LS: 166)
 The voice of the ancestors 

The initial stop in -dem is slightly pre-nasalized, but still not the usual modern
AAE form an’ ‘em, n’em. In any case, we have confirmation from Ian Hancock
(1987), Anita Henderson (p.c.), Lisa Green (p.c.), and Tometro Hopkins (p.c.)
that this associative -dem is still current in the South. Genderless third person
singular pronouns and -dem associative plural markers are among the most
typical or core features that distinguish anglophone Atlantic creoles.
Additionally, the general transcript correctly transcribes Texan cowboy
Charlie Smith as using a whole series of creole-like features: be do, ‘‘If you be
do the wrong thing’’ (EBE CS: 232); stressed been, ‘‘. . . been have it all my
days’’ (EBE CS: 122); what make (= ‘‘why’’), ‘‘That’s what makes the cowboys
was carrying their pistols’’ (EBE CS: 145–6); serial verb strings, ‘‘Carried show
us the fritter tree on the boat’’ (the sentence also starts with null subject) (EBE
CS: 74); and more.

. The entering wedges for the research

Immediately after verifying these instances in October 1995, I found more ex-
amples of creole-like features in the ESR materials. There was the enthralling
Stars Fell narrative told by Laura Smalley who vividly recreates an event that
happened to her mother in the early 19th century. This narrative is from one
of several archives not available to the editors of the EBE volume but which had
become available by 1995. The passage, (3), contains three more instances of
genderless pronouns (one ‘‘he’’ for ‘‘she’’ and two ‘‘um’’ for ‘‘her’’) as well as
other creole-like features. These are all shown in bold type. The whole of this
passage has already appeared in print in Sutcliffe (1997, 1998a). Since it is so
interesting both from a linguistic and non-linguistic point of view, I have re-
produced it here once more for the reader’s convenience. Much more is known
now, incidentally, about the historical background of the passage than at the
time of the previous publications. The interviewer, White Texan John Henry
Faulk, asks Laura Smalley if she had ever met any ‘‘wild Indians’’. She replies:

(3) I núse hèar mámá tálk ábóut ùm [I used to hear mama talk about
them] when say sh- when she was a chil’ . . . he [she] say dat uh, one
mornin’ she went out an Ol’ Mistress — she’d big ‘nough you know
for to handle water — an’ said when she got to de door, open de door,
that the stars was fallin’. Now when stars was fallin’ [th]at mornin’, an’
said she did’n’ know. Said Ol’ Mistress looked out an’ says:
 David Sutcliffe

Don’t you go out there! She says uh star[s]. She says they jus’ went like
meat fry’n’ you know, she said the whole Earth was jus’, jus’ uh, lit-up
you know. Said they jus’ goin’ like meat fry: ffwffwffwffw. Jus’ ‘fore
day.
En’ said dat uh, when she went to go tuh duh spring, an’ the stars
fell, say when they quit fall [stopped falling], twas daylight. An’ say she
met some Injuns, India- Indians, down [th]ere — you know they pack
[carry] water f ’om a spring she said. An’ say she met some wild Indian.
An’ they had, Ol’ Missus cook had giv uh a piece of bread, an’ dey give
her duh, dey give um de beads you know, give um, give er, give er some
beads. Some beads you know, an’ took the bread, an’ evi . . . [FW: Oh!]
Yassum, an’ took the bread f ’om uh. An’ said evitime she go uh
step in front, or go uh walk they jes’ step in front uvuh, evitime then
she go uh walk they step in front uvuh.
An’ said findly, at last dey had the bread up an’ retch the han’ back
you know, an’ took the, took the beads way f ’om uh. En’ dat said they
was wild. Take it away f ’om uh. An’ say she went back tuh the house,
cryin’, went back to the house cryin’, said that, she tol’ she met some
people who took ‘er bread, en’ give ‘er some beads an’ took the beads
away from ‘er. An’ das only ever I hear talk of wild Injuns- Indians, in
muh life. I never hear talk of no Indian[s]. Ain’t never seed one (Li-
brary of Congress archive 5497A recorded by John Henry Faulk in
1941 under the auspices of the WPA).

We know from the 1850 census that Laura’s Old Mistress (Adline Bethany)
was 25 years old in that year. Three years earlier, Adline, her husband James,
his parents, and their combined slaves had all moved west — from Alabama
according to the census or Mississippi according to Laura Smalley’s own ac-
count — and set up their new plantation in East Texas. No meteor storms of
any size are reported for the 1840s (Mark Kidger p.c.), but a moderate storm
was seen in the Eastern United States December 7, 1838. If the latter is the
event related above, then the scene is set in Alabama (or Mississippi) some
fifteen years before Laura was born. In that case, the Old Mistress in the story
is probably Adline Bethany’s mother and the Native Americans mentioned
belong to one of the Southeastern tribes.
As for the linguistic aspects, with this passage the number of genderless
third person singular pronouns found rose to four — an incidence which sug-
gested these were not performance errors. This was especially clear in the case
 The voice of the ancestors 

of ‘‘he’’ in line 2 since it occurs after a pause of 1.3 seconds. In any event, the
only singular actors in the story are (1) the narrator’s mother, (2) Old Mistress,
and (3) Old Mistress’ cook — all females. Further searching through the
Smalley interview brought the number of genderless pronoun tokens to eight.
Another occurrence of ‘‘um’’ for ‘‘her’’ was found in the speech of another East
Texan interviewee, Celia Black.
Other creole-like items in (3) are: three instances of preverbal particle ‘‘uh’’
inserted before the uninflected verb; the serial verb-like collocations ‘‘nuse
hear’’ and ‘‘quit fall;’’ and selection of the simple uninflected verb to convey the
past. There is also ‘‘she’d big ‘nough,’’ where the contraction -d may be the
past marker or the conditional marker. In either case, the adjective ‘‘big’’ is
clearly functioning as an adjectival verb.
I found another key example at this time (i.e., October 1995). While brows-
ing through the tapes, I heard Laura Smalley say something like ‘‘fwoiduh wuik
at’’. Not understood at a conscious level, the utterance nevertheless registered
subconsciously. After some delay, I went back to the interview and eventually
found the following (here transcribed with the ‘‘fwoiduh’’ sequence broken
down into three component morphemes):

(4) But they wuhz sure fine White folks over there, whuh I duh work at.
(EBE LS: 507)

The duh in this sequence is an apparent cognate of the Gullah duh particle
inserted preverbally to confer continuative aspect. Thus the utterance means:
‘‘They were sure fine White folks over there, where I used to work at.’’ This
makes perfect sense in context. Like the -dem associative marker and the
genderless pronouns, this duh continuative marker is a paradigmatic Atlantic
creole feature. At this point, it became very clear that it would be a good idea
to begin a thorough search through the ESR, looking for traces of creole and
optimizing the process in the following ways.

1. Listening to the ancestors and trying to tune into their world; entering into
the details, concerns and culture of their lives.
2. Positively expecting to find creole, or something bordering on it. (This
attitudinal factor has a powerful effect on perceptions, as the editors of EBE
point out.)
3. Increasing sensitivity to the occurrence of creole features informed by
a good knowledge of Gullah and/or a related creole (in my case, Jamaican).
 David Sutcliffe

Techniques involved in discovery and elucidation are also techniques

of verification, or confirmation, of what we have found. In recognizing a par-
ticular form — let us say a simple morpheme — we necessarily note specific
phonology and suprasegmental phonology that, in turn, help to define it or
pinpoint it for what it is.
The second and third principles listed above involve felicitous application
of the knowledge we have of the languages involved. The object, after all, is
correct parsing in the sense of dividing up the stream of sounds into the correct
morphemes. To do this, a necessary condition is familiarity with the range of
morphemes and structures that might occur in AAE, Gullah, or a related vari-
ety — and then an ability to accumulate and extend this knowledge. Since
structure is expressed through phonology, this also implies increasing knowl-
edge of all the phonemes, juncture rules, and other aspects of the phonological
system(s) via which these forms will be realized. Without this, we will not
always recognize the morphemes and structures that would be evident to us if
the speaker were using a slower, more deliberate style.
But, evidently, intuition, lateral thinking, or just plain luck can also play a
part in correct parsing. Labov tells the story of a particular line used by one of
the Harlem ‘‘sounders’’ he recorded which defied elucidation for years. Finally,
a White woman heard the line — played during a talk given by Labov — and
immediately heard that it was: ‘‘Your mother sails the seven seas in a sardine
can’’ (Labov p.c.).
There is little doubt that the original elucidating of the fatefully important
‘‘. . . whuh I duh work at’’ sequence falls into the beginner’s luck category as
much as familiarity with creole morphemes. Subsequently, accumulated know-
ledge played a great part.

. The continuum in th- and early th-century plantation-based

speech in the South

This search for creole in the ESR — still not completed — has proved success-
ful in finding many more creole-derived morphemes and micro-switches. In
some instances — in the case of the genderless pronouns, for example — it
might be that we have the result of contact with a creole; in others it is more
plainly the creole itself, however diluted or anglicized. These little bits of creole
or contact with creole were found mostly in the interviews clustered in the East
Texas-Louisiana border area (this area was over-represented in the ESR
 The voice of the ancestors 

sample), but also significantly in the Virginian speaker and one of the three
Alabamans in the sample. At the present time, we are transcribing a long inter-
view with a speaker from the Mississippi Delta area (George Johnson, originally
known as ‘‘CF’’) and already one or two creolisms have emerged.
In general, what we find is a ‘‘continuum,’’ or range of language, in the ESR
which extends from acrolectal English with little overt marking of divergent
African American morphosyntax — where any remaining deeper differences
are highly camouflaged — to an actual mesolectal creole evidently related to
Gullah or Bahamian Creole. This latter language, however, occurs only in small
snatches, scattered amongst the AAE like linguistic needles in a haystack. And,
in most cases, it is more anglicized — or less divergent — than Gullah, taking
as our yardstick the Gullah exemplified, for example, in Mufwene (1991) or
Quarterman (ESR corpus) at his most basilectal. In fact, some of the occur-
rences may be better understood as creole contact features in AAE (see Table
1). As a cover term, however, I propose calling these creole strata of the ESR
range — outside Gullah itself — the ESR Plantation Mesolect. (This is
mesolectal compared with, say, basilectal Gullah.)

Table 1. Occurrence of creole-derived features in the Ex-slave

Recordings by speaker
Name (Sex) State Genderless Preverbal Other* Unmarked
pronouns Particles Pasts
B. McRea (M) East TX ? + + +
L. Smalley (F) East TX + + + +
C. Smith (M) East TX + + + +
F. Hughes (M) Mid VA + + + –
B. Ledbetter (M) West LA – + – +
J. McDonald (M) West AL – ? + +
C. Black (F) East TX + (+) – –
H. Smith (F) East TX – (+) – –
*One or more tokens of the following occur: Creole pronouns im (masc. subj.
and poss), yunu, dem; auxiliary guh, copulas duh and suh; creole
demonstratives; creole use of woz, been, deh; miscellaneous. NB:
Gullah/Bahamian Creole forms not attested so far include fuh infinitive marker,
nuh negator, and binuh past continuative marker (though wuhzuh is attested).
Key: M male; F female; + occurs; – does not occur; ? ambiguous tokens; (+)
token(s) not confirmed;

Billy McRae — spelled ‘‘McCrea’’ in the EBE — actually used ESR Planta-
tion Mesolect a surprising 10–12% of the time in his interview. This compares
favorably with the use made of mesolectal Gullah approximately 33% of the
 David Sutcliffe

time by the officially recognized Gullah speaker, Wallace Quarterman, in his

interview. Since this speech data was recorded in interviews with White field
workers almost 80 years after the Civil War — in fact, in the case of Charlie
Smith and Celia Black, over a century after! — we can assume this creole or
semi-creole variety (ESR Plantation Mesolect) was spoken in a more
continuous way in other situations and in earlier decades.
Below are examples that illustrate the full range of language used, begin-
ning with coastal Gullah as a reference point. The passage in (5) is 19th/20th-
century coastal Gullah (basilectal creole with no switching) from Albert
Stoddard, a White speaker (member of planter’s family) born on Daufuskie
Island, Georgia, in 1872. The extract is entitled, ‘‘Long bill duh good ting (Buh
Crane and Buh Rabbit pay cash)’’.

(5) Buh Crane duh one fisherman, en when e does go fishnin’ e does ketch
nuff uh fish. Him en Buh Rabbit bin uh talk one day en Buh Crane tell
Buh Rabbit say, ‘‘Buh Rabbit, less we gie one dance.’’ Buh Rabbit
tellum say yeh, e would likes fuh gie one dance fuh true, but whey dem
duh gwine get de money fuh buy ting fuh gie de dance wid? Buh Crane
tell um say him would go fishnin’ en Buh Rabbit fuh tek de fish en sell
um en buy ting fuh de dance. (Stoddard 1949: 13)

The excerpt in (6) is a mixed text from the ESR corpus. It is 19th/20th-cen-
tury AAE with switching into near-basilectal Gullah by Wallace Quarterman
(WQ), an African American speaker born on Skidaway Island in 1844. The in-
terview was conducted and recorded by Zora Neale Hurston (ZH) in 1935. The
passage is on the subject of ‘‘Politics during reconstruction’’ (EBE WQ: 100–15).

(6) WQ: The time ain’t bad likuh it been then, because a man tink noth-
ing, killin’ a man an’ takin’ a drink of water. But since we nom-
inate the Democrat we have more ‘surance you understan’. The
law come in protectin’ dem you know they wouldn yerry the
colored people at all ma’am, at all. Yep, thas the way they come
in protect them but we had we own lawyer, judge and everyting,
but they jus’ wuhz run everyting in the dust you know, kill
everyting, couldn’t stan’ it, no.
ZH: Well, did you ever have a office, did you, would you ever, did
you ever hold a office?
WQ: I wouldn want an office, why an office is an onjust kin’ of ting.
You understan’. You got to go an’ please the, that fellow, under-
 The voice of the ancestors 

stand. (ZH: Yes.) You gotta stop do what God tell you an’ go
please that fellow an’ duh right deh weh you lef ’ out [and it’s
right there that you go astray].
The passage in (7) is a mixed text from the ESR corpus. It is 19th/20th-
century AAE with switching into ESR Plantation Mesolect by Billy McRae, a
speaker from Jasper, Texas, born circa 1852. The extract is about ‘‘Troop move-
ments at the end of the Civil War’’ (EBE McR: 45–59).
(7) That crew of Yankees would go tru. Next time you see, there come a
whole troop of Yankees, all ridin’ horseses, big guns a-hangin’ on in
there, an’ all like that you know. Yeah. We all would stan’ lookin’ at
um, all going home.
An’ I said, I ask um, I said, I duh ask um, I seh, ‘‘Mámá, whàh dé,
whàh dé go: n?’’ Said, ‘‘Dey all going home now.’’ An’ old Col. McRea,
that wuhz our master, he was lookin’ at her, an’ he say, ‘‘Well, Harriet,
all uh yunu niggiz uhz all free now. Yankees all goin’ home.’’ I ‘member
that jus’ as well. Ra’t [right], ra’t in town sùh whàh wé !lívín’ àt [‘‘is
where we were living’’]. Right above the new, the new, uh, Post Office.
That uhz my ol’, ol’ master’s home, right, uh, up, up above d’ ol’ new
Pos’ Office. Well dat duh his square [that was his square] from that
Pos’ Office, clean down to the Cissizen Bank. All dat duhz [or does]
his whole square there. An’ clean over to the ol’ part, coming on up to,
toward the Methodist Church. That was my ol’ master’s place.
There are some 18 other micro-switches or intrusions of creole morphemes
in McRae’s short interview (1500 words), including, for example:
(7) a. We use go home an’ (s)teal bread an stuff, duh poke i tru dem-de
lil bars . . . (EBE McR: 91)
‘‘. . . and poke it through those little bars . . .’’
b. An’ A see um dùh ték ùm. (EBE McR: 39)
c. Leh dem di- de duh holler n pray on dat log. (EBE McR: 99)
‘‘Let them stay there screaming and praying on the log’’.
d. I recollect a ol’ man, dey di have im duh come. An’ ol’ dep [or
?b’ack] sherrif. (EBE McR: 33–4)
The passage in (8) shows largely unswitched (but not quite) 19th/20th-century
acrolectal AAE from the ESR corpus. There are two fleeting but significant
intrusions from a creole-like system. The speaker is Fountain Hughes, an Afri-
can American born in central Virginia in 1848. The extract is about ‘‘Running
up a bill’’.
 David Sutcliffe

(8) When you pay down so much an’ they charge you fifty dollar, hundred
dollars for a set an’ you pay down twenty-five dollars cash, you done
paid them. Tha’s all it was worth, twenty-five dollars, an’ you pay, now
you, I’m seventy-five dollars in debt now. Cause I, I have pay a hun-
dred dollars for that set, an’ i’s only worth about twenty-five dollar.
But you buy’n it on time.
But people ain’t got sense enough to know it. But when you get ol’
like I am, you commence you think, well I have done wrong. I should
have kep’ my money until I wanted this thing and I when I want it, I
take my money an’ go pay cash for it. Or else I will do without it.
That’s supposing you want a new dress. You say, well I’ll, I’ll buy it,
but uh, I don’t need it. But I can get it on time. Well, less you go down
the store today an’ get something on time. Well you go down an’ get
a dress on time. (EBE FH: 62–70)
Initial impressions are deceptive. Note, firstly, the occurrence of ‘‘. . . less
you go down . . .’’ meaning something like, ‘‘I suggest you go down . . .’’ or
‘‘you should go down. . .’’ This is akin to the less we + verb construction (see
above in the Gullah of (5) and the Congaree example appended to (15) below).
In these cases, we have lack of raising, which is a paradigmatically creole fea-
ture. Then there is ‘‘. . . you commence you think . . .’’ which hints at a clearly
non-English type of structure involving successive finite verbs where the
finite/non-finite distinction, the main/subordinate distinction, and even
the lexical verb/auxiliary verb distinction tend to merge under the operation of
serialization and related, arguably, to African types of syntax.
There are three other places in the interview where Hughes uses the com-
mence + lexical verb construction. This repetition is useful in confirming a
pattern.
(8) a. Through the day còmménce !cóme ùh break, we got out án ^cóm-
mènce ùh gó whère wé blòng [serial verb + (two occurrences of)
ùh continuative or infinitive marker]. (EBE FH: 200–1)
‘‘. . . we got out and started to go where we belonged.’’
b. I còmménce ùh hául manure for him [continuative or infinitive
marker]. (EBE FH: 289)
Note that ùh continuative marker is an allomorph or equivalent variant of dùh
continuative marker. In these other instances, the lexical verbs are ‘‘active’’
(non-stative), transitive, and, perhaps for that reason, they are given continu-
ative aspect through the insertion of the ùh particle (preceded by directional
 The voice of the ancestors 

come in the first of the two occurrences in 13). In these cases, the repeat subject
is not inserted. But we do not have to look far for examples of repeat subject
insertion before V2 in the verb chain. For instance, we have ‘‘I tole im I say’’
(EBE FH: 351–2), which is a remodeling of ‘‘I tell im say,’’ and indeed both this
remodeling and the original form are still used in contemporary AAE.
In all, Hughes produces at least nine such creole-like, or creole-related,
intrusions in his long interview. It is easy to overlook these kinds of features —
until sensitized to their occurrence. I listened to Hughes’ interview several
times over a period of years before I noted the two micro-switches shown
above, which take up approximately 0.25 or 0.3 of a second in either case.
When transcribing, listeners store what they hear within their short-term mem-
ory and, in the process, may reshape it to correspond to an existing script —
whether standard or some other variety. Even trained linguists may not always
be sufficiently aware of the problem of circularity or prophecy fulfillment that
this poses.

. A bridge between AAE and Gullah

The range of (5–8) provides a useful framework for the wider linguistic situa-
tion of AAE in linguistic space. It is intended to be an illustration of a limited
piece of language watching restricted to the window provided by the ESR cor-
pus and Stoddard (1949). At the very least, there is one more major facet of the
situation to insert: a range of language that actually situates itself between AAE
and ESR Plantation Mesolect and, therefore (by implication), between AAE and
Gullah. By way of illustration, the extract below, taken from the short stories
and literary sketches of E. C. L. Adams (1927), points to the existence of what
is evidently a creole-leaning AAE (i.e., a variety of AAE with overt creole fea-
tures) which in places verges on a semi-creole.
These ‘‘Congaree tales’’ were set in the area around the Congaree Swamps
in the South Carolina Midlands — several miles south of Columbia and around
100 miles inland. Adams, a White physician and landowner, insisted he was
reproducing the local African American dialect which was different both from
coastal Gullah and from the more general inland variety of AAE. Nonetheless,
it obviously constitutes something of a ‘‘missing link’’ between the two — a
borderline creole area which native-speaker linguist Tometro Hopkins (p.c.
1997) has said exists in the fuzzy distinction between AAE and Gullah, particu-
larly in the Southern Atlantic seaboard states, and which a growing number of
 David Sutcliffe

investigators have noted (Kautzsch/Schneider 2000; Viereck 1991; Weldon

1998; Zeigler p.c.; Dillard 1972). A few of Hyatt’s (1978) transcriptions also
reveal borderline Gullah speech (e.g., Wilmington, NC, pp. 4419 and 4472).
The excerpt in (9), then, is 19th/20th-century Congaree African American
English (CAAE) as recreated by local White author Adams. There is no obvious
switching or drifting in and out of the language except for one brief switch into
standard legalese (‘‘nobody shall trespass’’). The passage is entitled ‘‘The death
of a turkey hunter.’’
(9) Tad: Is you all been to ol’ Bill’s funeral? Dere sho’ was moanin’ an’
weepin’.
Voice: Ain’t dere always is moanin’ an’ weepin’ at a funeral?
Tad: Dere was more on it at Bill’s ownt; dere always is when a man
is tooken dat er way.
Scip: Moanin’ ain’ guh bring nobody back.
Tad: Wuh happen were no more dan were expected. White folks
owns dem swamp an’ dey say nobody shall trespass, so Bill an’
dem other niggers wuh been raise up in dere an’ been huntin’
an’ fishin’ dere ever since slavery time would er loss dey mind
ef dey ain’ kin go dere.
Scip: Bill loss he life.
Tad: Bill say ol’ Marster nuse to own dem swamp, an’ dem swamp
were he bread an’ meat. He nuse to go dere wid ol’ Marster
an’ hunt Turkey in slavery time. (Adams 1928: 75)
Edward Adams, a much underrated writer, evidently soaked himself in the
culture and viewpoint of the African Americans he portrayed. As a result, his
work drew praise from even such critical observers as Zora Neale Hurston.
Below are further typical examples of CAAE, although hundreds of similar
examples could be given from this source; so these are not isolated traces:

(9) a. Wuh fuh we hush we fuss? (Adams 1927: 92)

‘Why should we hush our fuss?’
b. Tad, you sho is heared ‘bout it. When I been chillun, de ol’ folks ain’
‘lowed we to talk ‘bout it, it was so fright’nin. (Adams 1927: 32–3)
c. Less we pray for she. (Adams 1927: 99)
d. He shiver an’ ‘magine sumpn’ terrible was guh happen. (Adams
1927: 155)
The ‘‘creole-leaning’’ CAAE featured here appears in a more or less contin-
uous, unswitched form. In contrast, the only recorded examples we have of
 The voice of the ancestors 

the more overtly creole and creole-leaning ESR Plantation Mesolect occur in
intermittent switches. Notice that the Gullah used by Gullah-speaking Wallace
Quarterman in his ESR interview similarly occurs in intermittant switches as
an outcome of the interview situation. If we go back to Billy McRae in (7) and
separate the ESR Plantation Mesolect from the AAE to form two relatively ho-
mogenous blocks, we get the following:
ESR Plantation Mesolect
I duh ask um, A seh: Mámá, whah deh, whah deh go:n? All uh yunu
niggiz uhz all free, in town suh whah we livin’ at. Dat duh [his square].
All dat duhz [his whole square] deh. Would all uh go up. We use guh
home an’ [verb], duh poke i tru dem-de li’l bars. Leh dem di-de duh
holler’n pray. Dey di have im duh come. An’ A see um duh tek um . . .
(The additional examples of micro-switches appended to (7) have been cut and
pasted in here for good measure.)
ESR AAE
Yankees all goin’ home. I ‘member that jus’ as well. Right, right in
town . . .. [ copula] his square from that Pos’ Office clean down to the
Cissizen Bank. [copula] his whole square there. An’ clean over to the
ol’ part, coming on up to, toward the Methodist Church. That was my
ol’ master’s place. That uhz my ol’, ol’ master’s home, right, uh, up, up
above d’ ol’ new Pos’ Office.
CAAE (9) falls somewhere between ESR Plantation Mesolect and ESR AAE on
the continuum. It is less creole than McRae’s ESR Plantation Mesolect and
more creole (or creole-leaning) than his AAE.

. Tone: Another bridge between AAE and creole

Research carried out over several years (see, for instance, Sutcliffe 1992, 1998a,
1998b) suggests that AAE can usefully be regarded as a tone language (or per-
haps post-tone language) high tone (é), low tone (è), downstepped high tone
(!é), and upstepped high tone (^é). The system is quite similar to Jamaican
Creole. Gullah is even more similar in this respect. Downdrift operates in this
system such that the overall contour dips towards the end of the sentence or
tone group. In particular, high tones are automatically lowered after a low tone.
An associated phenomenon, downstep, occurs when a high tone is realized as
a step down in pitch from an immediately preceding high tone.
 David Sutcliffe

Tone in the creoles and AAE is less elaborate, less fully specified than say
in languages like Yoruba or Igbo (see McWhorter 1998); nonetheless, tone has
emerged as a particularly important tool in the deciphering of the creole and
deeper AAE utterances in the ESR corpus. The tonal patterns assigned to utter-
ances point out the structures and component morphemes being used. For
instance, as I began finding various duh tokens, it soon became clear that this
particle consistently took a low tone when it preceded a verb while the follow-
ing verb’s stressed syllable regularly took a high tone. Similarly, I found from
looking at a range of examples that the subject pronoun of relative clauses is
regularly assigned high tone. Knowledge of these patterns sometimes showed
that the original EBE transcript was wrong at certain points. A prime example
of this was:
(10) But they wuhz sure fine White folks over there, whùh Í dùh wórk at.
(EBE LS: 506–7)
EBE transcribes, ‘‘But they was sure fine White folks over there, where they
work at.’’ Besides not making sense in context, the EBE version is not compati-
ble with the tonal marking. If the duh were ‘‘they,’’ it would automatically have
a high tone since this is a consistent pattern for pronoun subjects of relative
clauses, as we have noted. The fact that a scarcely heard ‘‘I’’ pronoun subject
takes the high tone allows us to hear it for what it is. The low-toned duh can
then be heard as the preverbal particle that it is.
One of the challenges of ESR Plantation Mesolect analysis is that the duh
particle has multiple meanings. Table 2 provides examples of the duh words in
19th/early 20th-century materials together with cognate examples from Sea
Islands Gullah.
More generally, what we find in creoles is that initial subject pronouns
regularly take low tone while ‘‘embedded’’ and other non-initial subject pro-
nouns — including subjects of relative clauses — regularly take high tone
(upstepped high tone if preceded by a high tone). This generalization ex-
plains why, in available ESR Plantation Mesolect and AAE data, the sentence-
final tag you know regularly takes a distinctive pitch pattern — high tone on
the (obviously non-initial) subject pronoun, yóu, and low tone on the verb,
knòw. Where the syllable preceding non-initial yóu has high tone, yóu is
upstepped (i.e., accorded an extra high tone). The same tonal pattern for the
sentence-final tag you know is found in Jamaican Creole for basically the
same reason.
But apart from these general considerations, an understanding of the tonal
level of grammatical marking in AAE and Gullah has a very practical applica-
 The voice of the ancestors 

tion in the elucidation of difficult utterances as we have seen. As such, the use
of tone as a tool to discriminate patterns represents one of several techniques
that can be productively used in the elucidation and verification of utterances.

Table 2. Potentially ambiguous duh in ESR Plantation Mesolect and Gullah

Duh 1–Definite article
Gullah . . . I de one get de gal (Stoddard 1949: 14).
ESR Mesolect Das duh punishment dey got (EBE McR: 33).
Duh 2–Preposition
Gullah Soon duh mornin’ dem gone een de wood (Stoddard 1949: 6).
ESR Mesolect* I bin duh oilfiel’ (LS archive AFS 5497B).
Duh 3–Infinitive marker
Gullah I gwine duh change (Mufwene 1991: 217).
ESR Mesolect You’d have tuh stay duh work out yo debt (EBE LS: 488).
Duh 4–Conditional marker
Gullah Ef dem hadduh hit me on dat knot e [would] duh kill me fuh true
(Stoddard 1949: 22).
ESR Mesolect I holler dat holler you hear me uh-holler an he duh answer me wa: y
over yonder (EBE BL: 76).
Duh 5–Hadduh
Gullah . . . e hadduh tun e tail tuh duh ribber en duh back back (Stoddard
1949: 18).
ESR Mesolect He’d hadduh come with him, because she know he gonna have a roun’
with some of the colored folks (EBE LS: 579–80).
Duh 6–Continuative
Gullah B’Allegetter deydey duh sleep wid e mout open (Stoddard 1949: 18).
ESR Mesolect But dey wuhz sure good White folks over there, whuh I duh work at
(EBE LS: 506–7).
Duh 7–Linking V2 or V3
Gullah Buh Rattlesneak bin so mad e sing e rattle en duh twist (Stoddard 1949:
16).
ESR Mesolect We use go home an’ steal bread an’ stuff, duh poke i tru dem de lil bars
(EBE McR: 91).
Duh 8–Equative copula
Gullah Greyshish, Buh Fox, you sho duh one able man (Stoddard 1949: 5).
ESR Mesolect Well, dat duh his square, from dat Post Office. . . (EBE McR: 56).
Duh 9–Focus marker
Gullah Dem bes go tuh Buh Allegetter house en see is duh him teef de butter
(Stoddard 1949: 17).
ESR Mesolect* That how come duh he use his wagoner (EBE McR: 76–7).
‘That’s how come he used to be his wagoner.’
*Pending confirmation. What we apparently do have is a clear attestation of suh copula used in that
syntactic slot by Billy McRae’s “Right in town suh whah we livin’ at (EBE McRae: 53).
 David Sutcliffe

We now turn to looking at the subject of elucidation and verification as well as

the use of some of these other techniques in more detail.

. Elucidation and verification

As we have already mentioned, John Rickford produced the improved tran-

script of the Quarterman interview. Quarterman, it will be recalled, was the
only recognized Gullah speaker in the ESR corpus. A neat example of correct
parsing based partly on accumulated experience and partly (no doubt) on luck
occurred when I managed to elucidate one of the few ‘‘cruxes’’ or sequences of
words that Rickford finally did not resolve.
Quarterman is asked (by none other than Zora Neale Hurston) whether he
ever held public office. He replies, with eloquent simplicity, that he wouldn’t
want that, and explains why. The EBE transcript reads, ‘‘You got to stop do
what God tell you and go please the, that fellow, and (unintelligible)’’ (EBE
WQ: 115). Rickford’s improved transcript reads:
(11) (If you hold office) You got to stop do what God tell you and go please
the, that fellow, and the right [?David?] you lef ’ out (Rickford 1991:
211).
It transpires that the highlighted sequence in Rickford’s version (21) is much
better than its equivalent in the EBE main transcript, and just needs reparsing
since all the sounds are in place.
EBE version and (. . . unintelligible . . .)
JR version: and the right [?David?] you lef ’ out
Reparsed: àn dùh ríght !déh vèh yóu !léf òut
and cop right there rel you left out
Meaning : ‘And it’s right there that you go wrong’.
The veh actually begins with a bilabial fricative (/$/) typical of Gullah. The
tones are marked because of their importance here. Relative pitch is often more
easily heard than the other phonology and provides vital clues to correct deci-
phering.

. B(l)ack diamonds and c(r)osses

One of the peculiarities of ESR speakers’ pronunciation, above all in McRae’s

case, is that initial consonant clusters are variably simplified. As such, steal
 The voice of the ancestors 

bread is realized almost as ‘teal bread, with the faintest indication of /s/ and
a fully aspirated /t/. Similarly, the liquid consonants in initial stop + liquid
clusters are variably weakened or disappear. Thus, at lines 14–17 of the EBE
transcript, the EBE transcribes:
(12) . . . an’ all the Yankees I recollect was blue, was dressed in blue clothes,
I can remember it, with blue junk right here, an’ had a little pin on, on
the coat right there. In fact I’m, an’ course it was up there. (EBE McR:
14–17)
The underlining is in the EBE version, indicating that not all contributors
agreed with the transcription as published. Once we are aware of McRae’s ten-
dency to simplify stop + liquid clusters, we can ‘‘fill out’’ what we hear and
arrive at a more convincing (less incoherent) transcription:
(13) . . . an’ all the Yankees I recollect was blue, was dressed in blue clothes,
I can remember it, with blue junk right here, an’ had a little pin on, on
the coat right there. En black diamon’, en cro:sses up there. (EBE McR:
14–17)
Thus we get a more vivid picture of the way the young McRae homes in on
visual detail. Although this particular example does not become ‘‘more creole’’
when more faithfully transcribed, we note that the tendency to simplify to sim-
ple stops what are clusters in English cognates is typical of Gullah and other
creoles. So, for example, Bruh Rabbit (‘Brer Rabbit’) becomes Buh Rabbit in
Gullah.

. Phonemic length

The phonetic quality of vowel length has been replaced by an abstract, histori-
cal division of vowels into long and short in many varieties of North American
English. In other words, the old division remains but vowel length itself no
longer distinguishes between phonemes. This, however, has not happened in
AAE — certainly not in the 19th-century AAE of the ESR corpus. Phonetic
length remains phonemic. The word ‘arm’, for example, has long back un-
rounded /ɑ:/, while ‘mama’ has short back unrounded /ɑ/. In this system, long
vowels are twice as long as short vowels, all other things being equal, and nasal
consonants have approximately the same length as single vowels. This fact has
helped elucidation in many cases. For example, the crucially important find
yunu (‘‘you’’ plural), which occurs in the McRae interview, is three times as
 David Sutcliffe

long as the ‘‘expected’’ form you — a fact which then called attention to the
far-from-obvious intervocalic nasal. It is clear, incidentally, that the reference
is plural since what is said is:

(14) Well, Harriet, all a yúnú níggíz uhz all free now . . . (EBE McR: 52)
‘. . . all of you-all Blacks are all free now’.
This is an utterance which marks plurality four times (twice with ‘‘all,’’ once
with ‘‘yunu,’’ and once with plural suffix -s). Another example where attention
to length played a crucial role was the following utterance from Laura Smalley.
At this point, she is talking about her old landlord’s wife:

(15) When ever I got the crop, you know, made a good crop that year, got
the crop in, went on see his wife, and his wife come down there óne
dày (h)é sàys uh, ‘‘Láurá,’’ I say, ‘‘Ma’am?’’ ‘‘Ain’t Mr. P. tell you to
leave?’’ I say, ‘‘Ye-esum’’. (EBE LS: 522–5)
The EBE transcribes it as, ‘‘an’ his wife come down there one day, says, uh,
‘Laura’.’’ This makes sense in context but (if it refers exactly to the sounds)
must assume that the word ‘‘day’’ is pronounced with a long /e:/. This is a
diphthong with the length of three single vowels, at least one vowel longer than
expected. Furthermore, as Bailey/Thomas (1998) have shown, the ESR speakers
use very narrow diphthongs or monophthongs in words like ‘‘day.’’ What we
therefore have is two words: /de:/ + //, the second word being ‘‘he’’. This inter-
pretation is confirmed by the fact that // takes a rise in pitch. In AAE, this is
a typical pattern for subject pronouns after the first pronoun in a linked, or
narrative, series (Sutcliffe 1998b: 183–6). This pattern is seen, for instance, in
the reparsed version of (11). Once we realize the word ‘‘he’’ is there, it is evi-
dent why it was missed before. It has to be taken as a creole pronoun (a
genderless third person singular subject pronoun) referring back, in this case,
to a female human (Mrs. P.). It is, in fact, one of the pool of only nine such
unambiguous occurrences of genderless third person singular pronouns
(whether subject, object, or possessive) in our data.

. Repetition

A very welcome source of assistance in correct deciphering and, above all,

validation of transcriptions is the sheer amount of repetition in some of the
ESR speech. We have already seen something of this in Fountain Hughes’
interview. In Charlie Smith’s case, this reaches amazing proportions. In one
 The voice of the ancestors 

instance, he repeats a series of some 40 words, almost verbatim, in two sepa-

rate parts of the interview (lines 124–7; lines 193–7). But it is the smaller or
component reiterations that are particularly useful in establishing the correct-
ness of otherwise suspect transcriptions. For example, Charlie uses the particle
uh to mark the following verb as continuative and repeats virtually the same
several times:
(16) An’ the man uh raise me, he din buy me. (EBE CS: 108)
(17) An’ the man uh raise me, he name me Charlie Smith. (EBE CS: 113)
(18) Carried me to his house. An’ uh raise me. (EBE CS: 187)

The EBE transcript does not register any of these uh occurrences. For in-
stance, for (18) it has, ‘‘Carried me to his house. An’ raise me.’’ The lone schwa
is perhaps wrongly taken to be the onset of the /r/ continuant. However, the
fact that Smith repeats himself gives us three mutually supporting attestations.
Even more importantly, Charlie Smith repeats another formula three times: the
use of the creole pronoun im + seh (‘he said’):

(19) Im seh(in), enjoy you money when you livin’ . . . (EBE CS: 125)
(20) Im seh, millionaire uh dies an’ leave all they got. (EBE CS: 127)
(21) Im seh(in), enjoy you money when you livin’ . . . (EBE CS: 195)

This coincides very usefully with two repetitions of the same formula in the
speech of the former Alabaman slave, Joe McDonald:

(22) Im seh, ‘‘Joe,’’ say, ‘‘Sir’’. (EBE McD: 70)

(23) Im seh, ‘‘Take out Ol’ John [Horse], go in the house, feed the baby’’.
(EBE McD: 72–3)
In each individual case, the subject pronoun appears to be the creole pronoun
im, rather than English ‘‘he’’, and yet, in each case, this is difficult to establish
objectively. In all five cases, in fact, the word consists of a lone nasal vowel (no
consonant). The quality of a single lone vowel seems slim evidence; however,
the cumulative weight of evidence is what finally makes the case for the exis-
tence of the im subject pronoun in ESR Plantation Mesolect. So this has finally
helped confirm the two occurrences in McDonald, which had seemed doubtful
until the other three examples in Charlie Smith were located. This is important:
(22) and (23) contain the only unambiguous realizations of creole features in
MacDonald’s short interview and, in fact, the only instances of overt and
unambiguous creole noted so far in the three Alabaman interviews in the ESR
corpus.
 David Sutcliffe

. Repetition as reworking and remodeling

Billy McRae, the ESR speaker who produced by far the greatest concentration
of creole-derived features, gives us the only occurrences of yunu, as we have
already seen, and the only occurrence of duh as an equative copula (we have a
number of examples of duh as preverbal marker). The sequence in which the
duh copula occurs is particularly useful because it provides three other ways of
saying the same thing, as in (34), and these alternatives mark a route that takes
us across the interface between creole and AAE.
(24) That wùhz my ol’, ol’ ma:ster’s home, right, uh, up, up above the ol’,
new Post Office. Well, dát dùh his square, from that Post Office clean
down to the Citizen Bank. Áll !dát dùhz his whole square, dah. An’
clean over to the ol’ part, comin ‘on up to, toward the Methodist
church. That 0 my old Ma: ster’s place. (EBE McR: 54–9)
Here we have most (not all) of the possible options in the combined system.
There is the AAE wuhz past-marked copula; there is the apparently creole form,
dùh equative copula, unmarked for tense; and then there are two realizations
in between: reworked dùhz, or does, used as an equative copula, and finally zero
copula — rare in modern AAE where it ‘‘replaces’’ past-reference wuhz. We
have no other attestation of duh as equative copula in the ESR corpus, although
we do have several examples of duh focus marker (none confirmed beyond
doubt) and — in the Congaree materials — several useful attestations of the
closely similar allomorph uh appearing as an equative copula.
There are many other places in the ESR corpus where repetitions help us
to tease out, compare, and contrast. They also give us insights into the way
forms are reworked along the continuum from overtly creole to AAE-compati-
ble. Texan Laura Smalley provides an especially valuable passage where future
markers and markers of future-in-the-past are repeated and reworked.

(25) LS: Cause a little chil’, you can whip a little chil’, an’ he’ll uh get
mad, you know, and don’ want tuh eat nothing. (Train whistle).
So Uncle S.-dem/Uncle S. den, he uh go whip ma mama. We had
a brother, oldes’ brother name Cal, and he (w)uhz gon whip ma,
ma mother’s boy pack water. An’ she (w)uhz go(n) fight im
(laughs).
FW: Is that right?
LS: Yes sir, she uh go fight um . . . You see, one portion the people
belong . . . (EBE LS: 229–37)
 The voice of the ancestors 

Notice that ‘‘she uh go fight um’’ is virtually identical to the Jamaican

Creole shi a go fait im. At all events, what we have here is a sort of continuum
between the AAE wuhz gon and the ESR Plantation Mesolectal creole uh go.
Smalley reworks the forms from one to the other along this continuum which
spans between AAE and creole. However, it is clear that the forms are not com-
plete equivalents since AAE wuhz gon is future-in-the-past whereas creole uh
go is the simple future employing the continuative of ‘‘go’’. And yet they are de
facto equivalents since past-marking is optional here and so, as in most in-
stances in the creoles, it can be dropped. Nonetheless, in strictly linguistic
terms, Laura Smalley has ‘‘produced’’ one preverbal marker, uh, out of another
quite different one, past-tense marker wuhz, by a process of ‘‘fudging’’ or
remodeling the surface form. Combining the information we have just derived
from McRae and Smalley, we would tentatively suggest the following combined
system for certain copulas and markers spanning between AAE and ESR Plan-
tation Mesolectal creole (see Figure 1). The two systems are provisionally called
(1) AAE-Interface, spanning the older AAE and AAE-creole borderline, and
(2) Interface-ESR Mesolect, spanning from the borderline to the creole (ESR
Plantation Mesolect).

AAE-interface (true copulas + VP markers)

-Past COP +Past COP VP Past Marker
UHZ (W)UHZ (W)UHZ
Interface-ESR mesolect (true copulas + VP markers)
±Past COP VP Past Marker
DUH~UH* (W)UHZ~Z; DID~D*
*Based on ESR evidence and supporting evidence from Congaree data.

Figure 1. Evolution of be verbs on the two sides of the interface

As exponents of the Interface-ESR Mesolect creole system, we find: he’Z
holler, Have mercy on Old Master (‘‘he yelled, Have mercy . . .’’) (EBE LS: 351);
dem wuhzUH Indian (LS: unpublished archive); another big old horse WUH-
DUH saddle horse (EBE McR: 40); and a number of instances of wuhz go, wuhz
run, etc., in both the ESR corpus and the Congaree data. Wallace Quarterman
in (7), for example, says they just wuhz run everything in the dust.
All this has to do with handling the interface between creole and AAE in
a way which minimizes the overtness of the change by camouflaging it so that
the creole system seems to underlie and interpenetrate the AAE system without
obviously obtruding.
 David Sutcliffe

. Conclusions

This concludes our brief overview of evidence for a prior mesolect, or interme-
diate creole — shading into an AAE heavily influenced by it — which left its
imprint on AAE as we now know it. From this and other evidence, it can be
concluded that such a mesolect was spoken in several places in the South out-
side the Gullah area in the 19th century but was probably on the point of ex-
tinction in the 1940s when most of the elderly ex-slaves in this sample were
recorded. It is true that Laura Smalley, Billy McRae, and probably other re-
corded ESR Plantation Mesolect speakers — with the notable exception of
Virginian Fountain Hughes — derived their creole-influenced language two or
three generations removed from the Gullah area of the Atlantic seaboard or its
Gullah-influenced hinterland.
The point, however, is that this original eastern creole-speaking area was
evidently much larger at the beginning of the 19th century than it is today.
More precisely, there was the Gullah-speaking area proper and beyond that a
fringe area where creole features occurred in speech at a rather lower density.
Not only did this ‘‘creole fringe’’ stretch inland, but it extended into North
Carolina and perhaps linked up with areas of similar creole-leaning speech in
the Chesapeake. Certainly, we know from Fountain Hughes’ data and from
several other sources that parts of Virginia spoke a creole-like variety at that
time. And it was this more widely spoken semi-Gullah, or ‘‘Mesolect’’, rather
than Gullah in the more restricted sense, that was apparently spread westward
as far as the Mississippi River and beyond.
A neat illustration of this is the fact that while Laura Smalley was born in
East Texas, her mother and the other slaves along with their plantation owners
came from Alabama and Mississippi. And their parents (that is, the Old Mis-
tress of the Stars Fell narrative, her husband, and their slaves) had originally
come from South Carolina (information taken from the 1850 census for Aus-
tin county, Texas). In the same way, Billy McRae was born in East Texas but
his master, Colonel McRae (aged 48 in 1860), came directly from North Caro-
lina while the latter’s wife came from Georgia (information taken from the
1850 census for Jasper county, Texas). And as we have seen, both Laura
Smalley and Billy McRae were speakers of the creole or semi-creole range we
are provisionally calling ESR Plantation Mesolect. This ESR Plantation
Mesolect was robust enough, even after being transplanted one or more
times in the move westward, to survive the combining of different slave
forces and to be used — sporadically and perhaps unwittingly — in interviews
 The voice of the ancestors 

with White fieldworkers almost 80 years after the guns of the Civil War had
fallen silent.

. Final statement

A scattering of overt creole features, such as duh continuative marker before

stem verbs and genderless pronouns (he for ‘‘she’’, etc.), have been shown to
occur in the speech of former slaves who lived hundreds of miles west of the
Atlantic seaboard. There is no doubt that these are typical creole features, well-
attested for Gullah and other creoles, and that these speakers are drawing on
a Gullah-like level of the continuum in their micro-switches. I believe this level
emerged out of the transition from near-monolingual use of Gullah on the
19th-century plantations in coastal South Carolina and Georgia (where 80% or
more were African American) to bilingual use inland — with bilingualism
eventually leading to erosion and loss of the creole.
The similarities between AAE and the creoles of the Caribbean can now be
seen plausibly to derive from an early stage of AAE when, as we have seen, it was
apparently in contact with a more creole-like system. ESR corpus evidence for
this is largely confined to East Texas, with much sparser evidence for Alabama
and Virginia. Fortunately, we also have information on the South Carolina Mid-
lands and other areas of South Carolina which, taken together, strongly suggest
that South Carolina — perhaps along with Virginia — was the cradle of the more
creole-like varieties. The Gullah or semi-Gullah of both these areas was evidently
the result, at least in part, of importation of Caribbean slaves and their language
varieties on a large scale from 17th-century Barbados and perhaps other islands.
It would be good if more documentary evidence of all kinds could be lo-
cated. Above all, we crucially need to find fresh sources of early language data
derived not only from old recordings, fictional writing, biographies, and court
transcripts, but also from songs, stories, and recollections transmitted by the
oral tradition itself — the voice of the ancestors.

Appendix

Below is an inventory of ESR Plantation Creole and semi-creole attestations

found to date in the ex-slave materials and other sources. Glosses are provided
where necessary.
 David Sutcliffe

Key
# = difficult reading. i.e. obscure feature or structure not otherwise attested
* = difficult to hear/very rapid/some doubt over phonology
é, á, etc. = vowel marked by acute accent to indicate ‘‘high tone’’.
è, à, etc. = vowel marked by grave accent to indicate ‘‘low tone’’.
!é, !á, etc. = vowel marked as downstepped or flattened ‘‘high tone’’.
Nasal consonants may also be tone-bearing, but these are not marked here.
References: EBE FH: 377–8 (for example) means The Emergence of Black English, Fountain
Hughes Interview, lines 377–8, as per line numbering in the main EBE transcript.

Fountain Hughes (born in Charlottesville, VA)

(1) I does enjoy certain im show. (EBE FH: 377–8)

‘I do enjoy some of his shows’.
[creole possessive adjective im, ‘his’; unmarked plural noun]
The does is not the Gullah does, but the equivalent of standard do.
(2) Sómedày, yóu cóme òvér hère, yóu !cóme ín, tùh cáll! mé úp an let me know how
ùh my voice/how my voice. (EBE FH: 346–7)
[copula ùh with no inversion (no copula in final position); pronounced tonal pattern]
The ùh is difficult to distinguish, and may not in fact be there. On this see also (25)
and (60).
(3) You know what I dùh rúddér dó? (EBE FH: 268)
‘Do you know what I’d rather do?’
[dùh present conditional marker]
Compare entry (23) below.
(4) Well, dat ùh rún ùh whíle. (EBE FH: 299)
‘Well, that [cable car] ran for a while’.
[ùh continuative marker; second ùh is ‘‘a’’ indefinite article]
(5) I còmménce ùh hául manure for him. (EBE FH: 289)
[ùh continuative marker, or infinitive marker]
(6) Through the dáy còmménce !cóme ùh break, wè gòt óut án ^cómmènce ùh gó
whère wé blòng. (EBE FH: 200–1)
‘Since the day was starting to dawn, we got out and started to go where we belonged’
[serial verb plus ùh continuative marker or infinitive marker]
(7) . . . you comménce yóu thìnk, well, I have done wrong. (EBE FH: 64)
‘you start to think, well . . .’
[creole-like verb chaining with insertion of the repeat subject]
Notice that this contrasts with (5) and (6) which have commence followed by zero sub-
ject. On the other hand it compares with EBE FH: 351–2 Ì tóle ìm Ì sáy–which is a
remodeling of I tell im say, a form still used in contemporary AAE.

(8) An I use to haul manure go aroun different stables. (EBE FH: 291–2)
[?directional serial verb]
 The voice of the ancestors 

(9) Less you go down the store today. (EBE FH: 69)
‘I suggest you go down . . .’
[monomorphemic less, lack of raising]

Note also Ì tóle ùm Ì sàys . . . (line 351–2, remodeling of ‘‘tell say’’). For mono-
morphemic less we constructions see Zora Neale Hurston, (v), (vi) and (vii) below. Notice,
too, Hughes’ plural and singular forms: womens (lines 104, 105); see whut a ole people is
(lines 356).

Laura Smalley (East Texas)

(10) Mámá-dèm dìn knów !whére tò gó, you see, after Freedom broke. (EBE LS: 166–7)
‘‘Mother and the others . . .’’
[associative -dem plural marker]
This instance was noted by John Singler (1991). The -dem associative marker is attested
for contemporary Louisiana AAE (Hancock 1987: 306; Lisa Green p.c.), contemporary Mis-
sissippi AAE (Anita Henderson p.c.), modern Florida and Georgia AAE (Tometro Hopkins
p.c.).
(11) That ol’ woman, you know, she would ten’ to um. He name Aunt Tishy.* (EBE LS: 19)
[genderless pronoun he]
The he is rapidly and lightly pronounced. But EBE has: Her name Aunt T. — thus con-
curring in hearing a morpheme realization here rather than zero.
(12) Àn dém móthér hàrd´ly !évér táke ìt ìn hís hàn èn dó thè sáme ^slávr´y tìme. (EBE LS:
19)
[genderless possessive his; very pronounced tonal pattern]
(13) When míssús gàan whúp ùm, she sot her down down.* (EBE LS: 197)
‘When missus went to whip her she sat her down’
[gaan as AUX; ?? genderless ùm]
EBE has . . . when Ol’ Mistress started whoop her, she sat her down.
Um is pronounced as nasalized schwa here, but the nasalization is weak, making it hard
to tell this ‘um’ from ‘‘her’’. This example cannot be confirmed for that reason. Weak nasal-
ization is a feature of some varieties of AAE, and (71) is possibly an instance of complete
denasalization.
(14) His wife come down there one day, he says uh ‘‘Laura.’’ I say, ‘‘Ma’am.’’ (EBE LS: 524)
[genderless he]
The comma shown after ‘day’ in this sentence is purely notional, since there is no pause.
(15) His wife wouldn’, uh, stay at the house an he come to the fiel’. He’d hadda come with
him. (EBE LS: 578)
[genderless he]
EBE concurs in having he: He’d have to come with him.
Compare example (87) below, from the Dance Corpus (Dance 1978, transcriptions of
Virginia AAE, recorded in 1970s). A statistical analysis was carried out by the writer, on the
first third of the Dance Corpus: out of the 600 human, female-reference pronouns occurring,
 David Sutcliffe

only one was genderless, the instance shown in (87).

(16) He z holler: have mercy on Ol’ Master. (EBE LS: 351)
[−z may be a contraction of past marker was, or possibly duhz or suh, as in (43). To
be confirmed]
?‘‘He PAST hollered . . .’’ or ‘‘he CONTINUATIVE hollered . . .’’; context is clearly
punctual, or durative continuative: ‘‘was hollering’’. Note that here the main transcript in
the EBE concurs, similarly transcribing ‘‘He’s holler . . .’’
(17) So Uncle S de(m), he, he wuhz go whup muh mama. (EBE LS: 232)
‘So Uncle S. then, was going to whip my mother’ or alternatively ‘So Uncle S. and his
lot, were going to whip my mother.’
[Uncle S dem (?) is creole associative plural; go AUX with prefixed past marker was].
EBE transcribes: So Uncle S., then, he, he was gonna whip my mama.
(18) An she (w)uhz go fight im. (EBE LS: 233)
‘. . . and she was go fight him’.
[go AUX with prefixed past marker was]
This go may actually be denasalized gon. This variety of AAE evidently plays on the
ambiguity between denasalized gon and go.
(19) An she uh go fight um. (EBE LS: 236)
[go AUX with prefixed uh# — reduced form of past marker was, or just as likely the
continuative marker uh, allophone of duh]
(20) Dás !wéh déy gó dò# — here baby! (EBE LS: 325)
[Whole phrase is clearly creole; go AUX, meaning ‘‘would’’. More usually preceded
by the past marker, as in (xx) below. Note that ‘here baby’ is an aside, adressed to
child]
EBE transcribes: That’ the way they would do. He’d be.
(21) Ì núse héar ùm tálk bóut . . . (EBE LS: 157–8)
‘I used to hear them talk about . . .’
[nuse /nyu:s/ past habitual marker — as in Gullah]
(22) Lay there and watch her suh whip suh bad. (EBE LS: 225–6)
‘Lay there and watched her be whipped so bad’
[sùh preverbal marker — cf. suh copula in Liberian Settler English, Singler (1991)]
Suh also surfaces in McRae’s speech, example (43).
(23) Ef you w–w . . . pa duh whip you half a day, you ain’t wan eat. (EBE LS: 226–7)
‘‘If your pa whips you for half a day, you don’t want to eat’’.
[dùh continuative marker]
EBE transcribes: ‘If they whip you half a day, you ain’t want to eat’.
(24) But they was sure fine White folks over there, whuh I dùh wórk at. (EBE LS: 507)
‘. . . where I used to work at’
[seminally important example of dùh past continuative, habitual marker]
EBE transcribes: . . . where they worked at.
 The voice of the ancestors 

(25) Dùh húh( ùh) féd all the chilrun. # (EBE LS: 91)
‘It was she who fed all the children’.
[Tough example. Highlighter dùh? Here, ùh seems to be a relative marker — or it may
simply be an extension of the word húh (‘‘her’’)]
EBE transcribes . . . where they fed . . . which is clearly not accurate. On the problems
of hearing uh following another vowel, see also (2) and (60).
(26) Come back with his gun you know, ride up where duh-r-u(m). # (EBE LS: 545)
‘. . . where they were.’
[Tough example. Non-final duh copula? May have Gullah intrusive /-r-/.]
EBE has: ride up where they was.
Confirmation of this example depends on finding other examples of stressed um.
(27) Mìstèr Páyne, yùh yó có‘rn! (EBE LS: 572)
‘. . . here’s your corn!’
[zero copula after fronted locative]
Zero copula after fronted locative or Wh- occurs also in (2) and in (xv) below.
(28) An, uh, young chilrun eat eat, out of de-de t’ing. (EBE LS: 26–7)
‘The young children used to eat and eat out of that thing’.
[iterated verb; de-de deitic, see (31)]
Serial verbs as opposed to verb-chaining, especially with ‘‘say’’, are scarce in Smalley’s
interview — a possible example being line 542–3, but there are at least two decreolized
(‘‘fleshed out’’) serial verbs: the’d jus come, jus like cows, jus a-runnin, you know, comin to the
children (line 51–2) and take hoe n cut grass (unpublished AFS archive 4598A). There is also
verb-chaining: Mr. P. come in the fiel’ sometime, you wouldnt be with hím, jùmp ón mé kìll
mè (lines 538–9). This example also features ‘‘when’’ deletion. For discussion on serial verbs
and verb-chaining in Caribbean creoles, see Winford (1993).
Note the singular forms: he was good people (line 567), he was good folk, though (line
601) — compare (9ff) see whut a ole people is. Also chilruns (line 562).
Master is [mahstə] not only here, but in Billy McRea (Texas), Fountain Hughes (Vir-
ginia), Isom Mosely (Alabama), Alice Gaston (Alabama). Only Harriet Smith has General
American English /æ/ [mæstə]. There are no tokens in Charlie Smith, Joe McDonald, Celia
Black or Bob Ledbetter.
The Congaree materials (works by ECL Adams, see below) spell the word ‘‘marster’’,
representing the [mahstə] pronunciation. There are apparently no occurrences of ‘‘aunt’’
with the same vowel in the ESR corpus, where, for example, Laura Smalley clearly says [ænt],
homophonous with ‘‘ant’’.

Billy McRea (McCrea) (East Texas)

(29) Dem going out through Jasper, two day. (EBE McR: 22)
[dem creole pronoun]
(30) Well, Harriet, all of yunu niggers ùhz all free now. (EBE McR: 52)
[seminally important example. yunu evidently is second person plural — compare
Jamaican unu, Bajan wuna, and Gullah yuna]
 David Sutcliffe

(31) Now, walk, nothing but de-de mules, nothing but de-de mules. (EBE McR: 12)
‘. . . Nothing but those mules, nothing but those mules.’
[similar attestation in Laura Smiley EBE: 27]
(32) Right at da creek yuh. (EBE McR: 97)
‘Right at this creek’.
[da . . . yuh discontinuous deitic?]
(33) Let dem di-de dis holler’n pray on dem logs. (EBE McR: 99)
‘Let them be there just screaming . . .’
[potentially important example but almost too rapid to capture. di-de seems in part
aspect marker, part locative]
Compare the following Sea Islands Gullah sentence: He up deh bang, bang, fix um
(Mufwene 1991: 221, adapted).
(34) Dat how come dùh he use his wagoner. # (EBE McR: 76–7)
‘‘That’s why it was he who used to be his wagoner’’.
[Tough example. Arguably, this is dùh highlighter and creole-like use of use habitual]
(35) Das wha use do, we was young. (EBE McR: 36)
‘That’s what we used to do, when we were young’.
[use as habitual marker; when-deletion; pro-drop ?]
(36) I recollect how dey duh call i(t). (EBE McR: 27–8)
‘I recollect how they used to call it’
[duh continuative marker]
(37) They dis jus’ have, they duh have, uh, six an eight mules to a cannon . . . (EBE McR: 9)
[dùh past continuative]
(38) Den dey take um out dah’n dùh puddum in jail. (EBE McR: 101)
‘Then they took them out there and put them in jail’.
[V2 marked as consecutive by dùh]
dùh is a mere extension of the preceding nasal, but its separate tone signals its pres-
ence, as does the overall prosody.
(39) An A see um dùh ték ùm . . . (EBE McR: 39)
‘And I saw them take them . . .’
[V2 marked as consecutive by dùh]
(40) We use go home an steal bread an stuff, dùh póke i t’ru dem lil bars to the prisoners.
(EBE McR: 90–1)
‘. . . and poke it through the little bars to the prisoners’
[V2 marked as consecutive by dùh]
(41) We all duh go out every day, right here in town. (EBE McR: 7)
‘We all used to go . . .’ or ‘We all would go . . .’
[ambiguous: creole dùh past continuative or conditional]
(42) I recollect an old man, dey di have im duh come. An old Black sherrif. (EBE McR: 33–4)
[did past marker; dùh past continuative or infinitive marker]
*EBE transcribes ‘dep’ (i.e. deputy) for ‘Black’. The speaker either says [bεʔ] or, if the
EBE is right, [dεʔ]. A significant feature of this speaker’s speech is frequent simplifica-
tion of initial stop + liquid to stop.
 The voice of the ancestors 

(43) Right, right in town sùh whàh wé lìvín àt. (EBE McR: 53)
[suh = interclausal copula or highlighter prefix; livin has past reference]
Meaning not clear, but perhaps: ‘right in town was where we were living’, ‘it was right
in town that we were living.’)
On suh, compare Laura Smalley, example (22), (84). Liberian Settler English has suh
copula (Singler 1991; Hancock 1987: 281–6), and Guyanese has sa highlighter prefix:
sa who he a call nagah (‘who’s he calling nigger?’ quoted in Hancock 1987: 281).
(44) Well dat dùh his square, from that Post Office clean down to the Cissizen Bank. (EBE
McR: 56)
‘That was his square . . .’
[important and clearly heard example: dùh equative copula]
(45) All dat dòes his whole square. (EBE McR: 52)
‘All that was his whole square’.
[this dòes is a relexification of duh equative copula]
The dòes could equally be written duhz.
(46) Bill! Ùh–yéssùh! (EBE McR: 77)
‘Bill!’ ‘Yes sir!’
[uh-yes appears to be emphatic response form of ‘‘yes’’ — compare Jamaican Creole
uh-no emphatic ‘‘no’’]
(47) . . . young White fellow I raise, his name Collin McRae, ing ha nuh mɒ:. (EBE McR:
89)
‘. . . he didn’t have a mother’.
[ing ha may be a contraction of ‘‘he aint have’’]
We have found Collin McRae listed as a member of Colonel McRae’s household (1860
census).
Several other clauses in the McRae interview are borderline creole, for example, Í ásk
ùm, Í sày: Màmá, wháh dé, wháh dé !gó‘n? lines 49–50 (if um refers to ‘‘mama’’ it is gender-
less. In any case the whole ‘‘feel’’ of this utterance is creole-like). See also lines 95, 96. Note
also the following singular and plural forms: horsiziz(‘horses’) line 47; a oxen (‘an ox’) line
76; niggiz (‘African Americans’) EBE line 57; di people-deh (?? plural marker -dem
(denasalised), or simple deitic de?) line 89.
The V2 consecutive link construction seen in (38), (39), and (40), occurs below in (63),
and is found in other creoles, including Gullah and Jamaican. A Jamaican Creole example
is: Yes, man! Di man kum iin di night and _a_ se, How di feedin da ya an di haag no get any?
We even have a literary example from Joel Chandler Harris in (iii) below.

Bob Ledbetter (Louisiana/East Texas border)

(48) An ‘ats all I dùh go by. (EBE BL: 13–14)
‘And that’s all I habitually go by’.
[dùh preverbal marker, marking habitual]
(49) Ì júst hòllér thát hòllér ^yóu !héar mé ùh hòllér . . . (EBE BL: 76)
‘I would just holler that field holler you heard me hollering’
[ùh preverbal marker, marking durative; hear has past reference]
 David Sutcliffe

(50) Àn hé dùh ànswér mè wa: : y over yonder. (EBE BL: 76–7)

‘And he would answer me . . .’
[dùh preverbal marker, marking conditional]
(51) Àn hé dùh ànswér mè wa: : y out at his field. (EBE BL: 83)
‘And he would answer me . . .’
[dùh preverbal marker, marking conditional]
(50) and (51) are grammatically ambiguous between present conditional and habitual–
continuative. But the context makes it clear that these are present conditionals. This
dùh present conditional-marker extends into borderline creole/basilectal AAE. See also (3)
above.

Joe McDonald (Alabama)

(52) ím sày, ‘‘Joe,’’ say, ‘‘Sir.’’ (EBE McD: 70)
‘He said ‘Joe,’ I said, ‘Sir.’’
[creole pronoun and verb]
(53) ím sày, ‘‘Take out Ole John [Horse] go in the house, feed the baby’’. (EBE McD: 72–3)
[creole pronoun and verb; paratactic verb chaining]

Woman with McDonald (probably called Miss Carol)*

No attestations in the less than 80 words she speaks during the recording.
(*) Interviewer John Lomax says ‘‘well, Miss Carol . . .’’ (or Carrie?) just as the recording
comes to an end.

Isom Mosely (Alabama)

Very fluent speaker. No attestations found in 1,500 words

Alice Gaston (Alabama)

No attestations in 500 words. However, Gaston’s phonology is most conservative, suggesting
some features might have emerged in an interview as long as Laura Smalley’s (around 15
times longer!). There is at least one undeciphered sequence, part of an eye-witness account
of the arrival of the Union troups at the end of the Civil War:
[Father] carried them with him. Duh bi duh Yankees. (EBE AG: 14)
It’s possible that this means ‘they were with the Yankees’ or alternatively ‘they were the
Yankees’; in which case we have creole features bi(n) past copula, with a preposed duh which
is either preverbal or prenominal duh, or ‘‘they’’ realized with a central vowel. In any case,
given any of these interpretations, we would seem to have a creole-like utterance here.
There is an interesting footnote to the AFS Alabama recordings: I have an (as yet
untranscribed) AFS recording of an interview with a White speaker from the same area. He
expresses rabid racist opinions, and yet paradoxically his speech contains apparent instances
of creole-derived morphemes such as duh continuative marker. I hope to provide more
information on this in the future.
 The voice of the ancestors 

Celia Black (East Texas)

(54) She [slave owner] raised her there with her, with her chillun, with her chillun. She
raise ùm there with her boys an girls. (EBE CB: 119–20)
‘She raised her there with her boys and girls’.
[genderless um]
(55) I didn’t have sense to think. Nothing but jús ùh pláy in the block with the children.
(EBE CB: 150–1)
‘. . . Nothing but just playing in the block . . .’
[ùh continuative marker]
Note also the plural oxens (‘oxen’) in EBE CB: 75.
Charlie Smith (Liberia/Texas)
Charlie Smith (Mitchel Wat(i)kins) was born on the Liberia Sierra Leone border and was
enslaved and brought to New Orleans at some time in the 1850s. He was recorded in Florida
at the age of 130.8
(56) Im say(in): enjoy you money when you livin . . . (EBE CS: 125)
‘He was saying/used to say: enjoy your money while you’re alive’.
[creole pronoun im]
(57) Im say(in): enjoy you money when you livin . . . (EBE CS: 195)
[creole pronoun im]
(58) Im say millionaire uh dies an leave all they got. (EBE CS: 127)
‘He said, (there are) millionaires that die . . .’
[ creole pronoun im]
(59) Thought?? dùh us dùh wan’ uh search. # (EBE CS: 306–7)
‘‘Thought?? it was us who wanted to search’’.
[dùh highlighter; dùh continuative marker]
This example and its analysis pending confirmation.
(60) I deh cuss/I deh uh cuss. (EBE CS: 18)
‘I was cussing’, or ‘I stood there cussing’
[continuative marker deh, or locative deh used aspectually; uh continuative marker (?)
also seems to be present]
Compare (65) and (33), also Dance 1978: 30. EBE transcribes: I was in cuffs. On the
difficulties of hearing uh in postvocalic position, see also (2) and (25).
(61) An the man uh raise me, he din buy me. (EBE CS: 108)
‘And the man who raised me/raising me . . .’
[continuative uh used after zero relative marker, or perhaps as the relative marker]
(62) An the man uh raise me, he name me Charlie Smith. (EBE CS: 113)
‘And the man who raised me/raising me . . .’
[continuative uh used after zero relative marker, or perhaps as the relative marker ]
(63) Carried me to his house. An uh raise me. (EBE CS: 187)
‘Took me to his house and raised me’.
[continuative uh used as linkage marker]
EBE transcribes: An’ raise me.
 David Sutcliffe

(64) Cause I thought I hadn been duh nuse totin those pistols an nothin to shoot(in)
with.*# (EBE CS: 198)
‘I thought I wasn’t used to having those pistols and having nothing to shoot at’.
[Tough example, difficult to hear-and-parse. Seems to be binnuh (creole past continu-
ative marker with use habitual marker]
(65) . . . Wuss [= we just?] rid up there, and didduh ‘‘Hey, where you goin? (EBE CS: 297)
‘We just rode up there, and were going: Hey, where are you going?’
[didduh — clearly creole-like. Could be relexification of Gullah binnuh plus zero verb]
(66) An’ when he died, all us, he had three, uh three or four of them pay did draw. He din
put no money in no bank. EBE CS: 131
[did past marker; did draw seems to be the creole passive]
(67) Got to the camp, weh deh di guard. (EBE CS: 306)
‘Got to the camp that they were guarding’.
[weh relative; did past marker]
(68) Say that it does/duhz too cole for them, you know to stan the cole. (EBE CS: 29)
‘They said it was too cold for them . . . .’
[does/duhz as copula]
(69) Dem bin ‘em six men. (EBE CS: 298)
‘They were those six men’.
[Dem pronoun; bin past copula]
EBE transcribes: ‘There by them six men’.
(70) Das whut makes the cowboys was carryin their pistols an rifles to kill um. (EBE CS:
145)
‘That’s why the cowboys were carrying their pistols and rifles to kill them’.
[bimorphemic what make]
(71) If you be do the wrong thing. (EBE CS: 233)
‘If you did the wrong thing’.
[?If you HAB do the wrong thing]
Holm 1991: 237 analyzes thus. A more likely possibility is that /b/ here is denasalized
bin unstressed past marker. Complete denasalization of bin is attested for 19th-century
Gullah. See Hancock 1987.
Note also stressed bín remote past marker: Been had it all my days, line 122. EBE tran-
scribes: Been have it all my days. Stressed bín remote past marker is creole-like but not in-
cluded above because (a) still extant in 20th century AAE and (b) not found in Gullah or
indeed other Atlantic creoles. The same is true of I’mo go work . . . (‘I’m gonna work.’) line
255, EBE transcribes: I might be work . . . Compare Laura Smalley’s I’mo see, in unpublished
archive 5498B. Finally, on the phonological level, there is flitters (‘fritters’) line 72, 73, and
Nunited States /nju-/ — a form used also by Celia Black, and found in Joel Chandler Harris
along with nuse and nunicorn. Gullah also has nyoung (‘young’).
 The voice of the ancestors 

Harriet Smith (East Texas)

(72) I really don’t know my age . . . Only by the children ùh téll me, of course.* (EBE HS: 6)
‘. . . by the children telling me’
[present continuative ùh (??). Realized as a devoiced vowel, on the in-breath!]
(73) No, they jus have these White . . . These B. that dùh kíll òur whíte, our boys, my
husband and his brother, was poor White people.# (EBE HS: 500–1)
‘. . . these B. that were killing our boys, my husband and his brother . . .’
[past continuative dùh]
EBE has No, they just have these White . . . these B. that they kill . . ., but the tonal
marking would seem to indicate that the dùh is the continuative marker, and not the
subject pronoun).
(74) Our White folks théy’d rìde gó to church in the morning, you know. (EBE HS: 337–8)
[directional serial verb]
Compare the following, probably a camouflaged or ‘‘fleshed out’’ directional serial verb:
Them soldiers was travelling going south to San Antonio. EBE HS: 224–5.

George Johnson (‘‘CF’’)

A start has been made on transcribing the interview conducted by musicologists Alan and
Elizabeth Lomax of George Johnson (coded as ‘‘CF’’ in the EBE). The speaker was born in
Davis Bend, Mississippi, circa 1860. He reports that his parents were French creole speakers,
and that his grandparents belonged to Thomas Jefferson. Johnson (‘‘CF’’) presents truly
formidable difficulties for comprehension. For example, at one point in the interview, the
interviewer fails to understand a proper name even after the speaker gives it three times. The
difficulties are not due to the quality of the recording, nor to the density of non-standard
features, so much as difficulties created by the phonology and juncture rules that govern
Johnson’s speech. Nonetheless, it is already clear that Johnson uses some creole-like features.
Four examples are given here, taken from the middle of the interview (as I have it) where
he describes a) the founding of the all-Black town of Mound Bayou, MS, in 1887; b) his
years working with Major Fontaine [Fontayne?] as a railroad surveyor; c) the dance band
he formed in the 1890s, and d) the present and future fortunes of Mound Bayou. The inter-
view is contained in the following Library of Congress AFS archives: 4777A, 4777B, 4778A,
4778B, 4779A, 4779B.
(75) Da(t) tree did cry: Ah yeah! You fool, ing? (Johnson, mid interview; see topic b)
above)
‘That tree cried: Ah yeah! You were fooled, weren’t you?’
[did past marker; creole passive and tag]
(76) He di name Snare Johnson. (Johnson, mid interview; see topic c) above)
‘He was called Snare Johnson’.
[di(d) past marker]
 David Sutcliffe

(77) George, I think duh look lack we can’t play it. (Johnson, mid interview; see topic c)
above)
‘. . . it looks like we can’t play it’.
[duh ?highlighter, or elided da ùh]
(78) Had dance White concert in there. Were up stairs Ah gone fuh live#. (Johnson, mid
interview; see topic c) above)
‘. . . it was upstairs that I had gone to live’.
[potentially seminal example of fuh infinitive marker, if and when confirmed.]

Occurrences found in other unpublished ESR archives (speaker: Laura Smalley)

(79) Oh we learnt..dém had some dat [spirituals] in our church you know up here. (LS:
Unpublished archive 5496B)
[dém subject pronoun]
(80) All the Indians I ever seed was over . . . was yere, an théy wasn wild. I nuse year
mama talk abou-rum. When she was a chile [1.8 seconds pause] he say dat uh, one
mornin she went out, an Ol’ Mistress . . . (LS: Unpublished archive 4597A, Stars
Fell narrative)
[nuse habitual marker; um becomes rum after vowels as in Gullah and Afro-
Seminole; genderless he pronoun]
(81) An give the, they givum de beads you know, givum, give her, give her some beads.
Some beads you know, an took the bread. (LS: Unpublished archive 4597A, Stars
Fell narrative)
‘And [the Native Americans] gave the, they gave her the beads you know, gave her,
gave her some beads . . .’
[genderless um pronoun]
(82) She say evitime she go ùh step in front, or go ùh walk they des step in front uvuh,
evitime den she go ùh walk they step in front uvuh. (LS: Unpublished archive
4597A, Stars Fell narrative)
‘She [Laura’s mother] said every time she went to step in front, or went to walk,
they just stepped in front of her, every time then she went to walk they stepped in
front of her’
[ùh ‘‘infinitive’’ marker]
This ùh ‘‘infinitive’’ marker occurs elsewhere, including Hyatt 1974: 3860, GA: I’s
hongry an’ I want sompin uh eat. Its use in (82) after a vowel, however, is more
striking.
(83) I dont know whe[ther] dém wùhzùh Índìan òr nót. (LS: Unpublished Archive
4597A, Plains Indians narrative, immediately after Stars Fell narrative)
‘I don’t know whether they were Indians or not’.
[wùhz ùh (wàs ùh) as variant on Gullah binuh]
Note that dém here is not unambiguously creole. It could be deitic them meaning
‘those’ which is common in White vernaculars.
 The voice of the ancestors 

(84) Whut suh matter wid you, may I as(k) you maam? (LS: Unpublished Archive
4598A. Dog Dead narrative)
[sùh copula]
This is apparently a reinterpretation (‘‘recutting’’) of the English colloquial pro-
nunciation. We can be reasonably sure of this because Smalley (here) clearly says
whut ([hwt] ) and not the expected modern AAE form wuss ([hwəs] or [wəs]) —
which seldom or never has the /-t-/. Her Whut suh has therefore evolved along a
different path from the modern form.
(85) Dey cárríed ùm búríed ùh.* (LS: Unpublished Archive 4598A. Dog Dead narrative)
‘‘They took her out and buried her’’.
[ùm genderless pronoun; verb chaining]
This example is necessarily doubtful because it refers to a dog, or rather a bitch.
Notice, however, that it is a consistent rule in Southern AAE to use he (more rarely
she) to refer to animals, whether mammals or lower on the scale. In the same inter-
view Laura Smalley says An’ you know they’d have certain time, you know, cow come
to his calf . . . EBE LS: 45. It on the other hand, is generally reserved for other uses.
(86) I bin duh oilfiel’. (EBE LS: Unpublished Archive 5498B)
‘‘I was in the oilfield’’.
[bin past copula]

Other 19th/20th-century examples (transcribed from speech)

(87) [Minister talking to Deacon] . . . all right, next Sunday, before I start my sermon,
and every time a woman come in, and if I’ve had something to do with her, I’ll say,
‘‘Bunkim,’’ and if you’ve had something to do with ‘em, you say, ‘‘Bunkim’’.
(Dance 1978: 61)
[genderless object pronoun um. Note also bunkim]
(88) And the people say, ‘‘just some o’ them people where died, just some o’ them peo-
ple where died’’. (Dance 1978: 25; cf. also Op. cit: 30)
‘. . . just some of those people who died, just some of those people who died’.
[where /wε/ functions as a relative, as in creoles like Jamaican Creole]
19th/20th century written examples (either recorded in writing at the time or recreated in
contemporaneous fictional writing)

Diaries, essays, letters:

(i) Da he! (King: 1879; Corky Feagin p.c.)
‘There ‘‘he’’ is!’ — referring to a carriage drawing up at the door.
[copula-less locative — compare the copula-less locative in (29) and (86); he or i, creole
pronoun — see 85ff)]
Uttered by a White adolescent in Natchez in 1875. He told King that this was ‘‘Planta-
tion slang’’ and supplied the gloss. I’m very grateful to Crawford Feagin for drawing my
attention to this example.
 David Sutcliffe

(ii) Dat ah steer bin broke into our fence last night. (Visit to a Negro Cabin (Virginia);
Family Magazine 1834; in Hancock 1987: 307)
‘That is the/a steer that broke into our fence . . .’
[ah spelt thus suggests ùh copula, though it could be the indefinite article; bin broke is
unambiguously bin creole past marker]

Fiction
Joel Chandler Harris (19th-century mid Georgia)
(iii) . . . en he so brash dat leetle mo’ en he’ der [= duh] grabbed up de sludge hammer
en er [= uh] open de racket ‘fo’ ennybody gun de word. (Harris 1982: 141)
[V2 marked as consecutive by uh continuative marker]
This is the only written example we have of this feature, so far, in available U.S. data.
Compare (38), (39), (40), (61), (62), (63) and see note after example (47).
(iv) Tha’s what make I say . . . (Harris 1982: 189; see also 216)
‘That’s why I say’ or ‘That’s what makes me say’
[bimorphemic what make meaning ‘why’. Alternatively this can be taken as an exam-
ple of non-raising.]
Hurston (20th century, mid Florida)
(v) Less we go to bed and git our night rest. (Hurston 1979: 213)
‘Let’s go to bed and get our night’s rest’.
[monomorphemic less; non-raising]
(vi) L-l-less we strack uh compermise, Brother May. (Hurston 1979: 272)
‘Let’s strike a compromise . . .’
[monomorphemic less; non-raising]
(vii) Less we tell lies on Ol’ John. (Hurston 1979: 279)
‘Let’s tell ‘‘lies’’ about Old John’
[monomorphemic less; non-raising]
See also let’s we (Hurston 1979: 188); Le’s us (Hurston 1979: 104).
(viii) ‘Cause you told me Ah mus gointer love him, and, and Ah don’t.’ (Hurston 1979:
247)
‘Because you told me I was bound to love him (in the future) and I don’t’.
[creole-like sequence of modals ]
(ix) Gwan do lak Ah tell you. (Hurston 1979: 189)
‘Go and do like I tell you/told you.’
[gwan as imperative ‘‘go’’]
(x) Whut make her keep her head tied up lak some ol’ ‘oman round de store? (Hurston
1979: 266)
‘Why does she keep her head tied up like that . . .’ or (less likely) ‘What makes her
keep her head . . .’
[bimorphemic Whut make meaning ‘why’; lack of inversion, although see second
gloss]
 The voice of the ancestors 

(xi) By dat time de voice come again and [he] looked way off an seen a mule in de planta-
tion lot . . . (Hurston 1979: 95)
[pro-drop (null subject) with switched subject reference]
(xii) His mind jus’ tol’ ‘im to go look in it . . . (Hurston 1979: 118)
‘Something just told him to go and look in it . . .’
[idiom; compare one mind tell me in Jamaican Creole]
Note that the speaker in (88), see above, had been born in the South Carolina Midlands
area at the end of the 19th century. There are reasons for believing this area, well inland
from the South Carolinan coast was — and probably still is — a linguistically very distinctive
area. This is confirmed, for example, by speakers like WB recorded by Tracey Weldon in
Camden, South Carolina (see Weldon 1998) who continue to use bin past tense marker and
other Gullah-like forms. (Viereck 1991 and Kautzsch/Schneider 2000 provide further evi-
dence). More surprisingly, from the same area, we also have convincing written data (fic-
tion) in E.C.L. Adams (1927, 1928).
(xiii) You know Mensa or is you know Mensa? (Adams 1928: 46)
‘You know Mensa, or do you know Mensa?’
[is question marker]
There is apparently no unambiguous example of is question marker in the ESR corpus,
but compare the AAE lyric popularized by Louis Jourdain: ‘‘Is you is or is you aint?’’, and
Hancock (1987: 293) has ‘‘Is I’m right?’’. The latter collocation (still current in the South)
shows up the structure which may be concealed in AAE ‘‘Is he right?’’, ‘‘Is they right?’’, etc.
(xiv) Wha it is all about? (Adams 1928: 114)
[non-inversion in WH-question where English requires it]
(xv) Wey he? (Adams 1928: 154)
‘Where is he?’
[WH-question with zero copula — see also (27) and (2)]
(xvi) I ain never know wuh kind er man Mensa (Adams 1928: 47)
‘I’ve never known what kind of man Mensa was’.
[indirect Wh-question with zero copula. See also (27) and (2)]
(xvii) While I been watch all dese strange guines on, I see de snow on de grave crack
an rise up. (Adams 1928: 236)
‘While I watched . . .’
[been copula]
(xviii) De White folks love him so till you mighty nigh thought he been one on ‘em.
(Adams 1928: 46–7)
‘The Whites love him so much you’d almost have thought he was one of them’.
[unstranded or adverbial so till; been copula; note also would deletion and have
avoidance]
(ixx) I done say wuh I guh say. (Adams in O’Meally 1987: 57)
‘I’ve said what I was going to say’.
[done perfective marker followed by stem verb; wuh relative; guh future marker]
 David Sutcliffe

(xx) He shiver an magine sumpn terrible was go happen. (Adams 1928: 155)
‘. . . was going to happen/would go happen’.
[was past marker inserted before guh to express condition]
Compare Laura Smalley (17), (18).
Other points of interest in Adams 1927 and 1928 can be mentioned here: the /-gv-/
labio-velar clusters as in agvice (‘advice’), etc., which may derive from substrate African
coarticulated /gb-/ (as in ‘‘Igbo’’), and the following singular/plural forms: a White folks
(1928: 104, 115); a chillun (‘a child’) (frequent). A notable lacuna is the apparent absence,
in these data, of -dem plurals (associative, or otherwise). More predictable is the rarity
of duh/uh particles as continuative preverbal markers or copulas, notwithstanding ex-
ample (xvii) above.

Notes
. Interestingly, she immediately goes on to talk about ‘‘droves’’ of what were evidently
Plains Indians that she herself saw passing by when she was a young child.
. The explanation, possibly, is that these facts may have been simplified when recorded in
the census, and that the husband, James Bethany, was from Alabama while the wife,
Adline, was from Mississippi. Laura Smalley’s mother had belonged to Adline according
to Laura Smalley.
. I’m grateful to Dr. Kidger and the Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute for detailed
information on this topic.
. Unmarked pasts occur also in AAE, in some cases explainable as use of the ‘‘historic
present’’ or deleted auxiliaries and in other cases not.
. In these transcripts, wedge (open schwa) is spelled ‘‘uh’’ and sequences of wedge plus /f/
are spelled ‘‘ui’’.
. A complete and periodically updated list of all ESR creole or near-creole attestations plus
other similar attestations from other sources is available at the CreoLIST Website <http:
//www.ling.su.se/Creole/CreoLIST>.
. The figure of 33% is a provisional one. It is based on two pages from Rickford’s im-
proved transcript, EBE WQ: 210–11.
. Other recordings were made of Charlie Smith. I would be very interested to hear about
any that are still extant.

References
Adams, Edward C.L. 1927. Congaree Sketches. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press.
—— 1928. Nigger to Nigger. New York: Scribner.
 The voice of the ancestors 

Bailey, Guy & Erik Thomas. 1998. ‘‘Some aspects of AAVE phonology’’. In Salikoko S.
Mufwene, John R. Rickford, Guy Bailey & John Baugh, eds. 1998: 85–109.
—— Natalie Maynor, & Patricia Cukor-Avila, eds. 1991. The Emergence of Black English:
Texts and Commentary. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Dance, Daryl C. 1978. Shuckin’ and Jivin’. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Dillard, Joe L. 1972. Black English: Its History and Usage in the United States. New York:
Random House.
Gilbert, G, ed. 1987. Pidgin and Creole Languages: Essays in Memory of John E. Reinecke.
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
Hancock, Ian. 1987. ‘‘A preliminary classification of the Anglophone Atlantic Creoles
with syntatic data from thirty-three representative dialects’’. In G. Gilbert, ed.: 264–
333.
Harris, Joel Chandler. 1982. Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings. Harmondsworth:
Penguin Books.
Hurston, Zora Neale. 1979. I Love Myself When I’m Laughing. Old Westbury, NY: The
Feminist Press.
Hyatt, Harry M. 1978. Hoodoo, Conjuration, Witchcraft, Rootwork. Los Angeles: UCLA, Alma
Egan Hyatt Foundation.
Kautzsch, Alexander & Edgar W. Schneider. 2000. ‘‘Differential creolization: Some evidence
from earlier African American Vernacular English in South Carolina’’. In Ingrid
Neumann-Holzschuh & Edgar W. Schneider, eds. Degrees of Restructuring in Creole
Languages. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 247–74.
King, Edward. 1879. The Great South: A Record of Journeys in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama and
Maryland. Hartford, CT: American Publishing Co.
McWhorter, John. 1998. ‘‘Identifying the creole prototype: vindicating a typological classifi-
cation’’. Language 74: 788–818.
Mufwene, Salikoko S. 1991. ‘‘On the Infinitive in Gullah’’. In Walter F. Edwards & Donald
Winford, eds. Verb Phrase Patterns in Black English and Creole. Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 209–22.
—— John R. Rickford, Guy Bailey & John Baugh, eds. 1998. African-American English:
Structure, History and Use. London: Routledge.
O’Meally, Robert. 1995. Tales of the Congaree. National Park Books.
Rickford, John R. 1991. ‘‘Representativeness and reliability’’. In Guy Bailey, Natalie Maynor,
& Patricia Cukor-Avila, eds., 191–212.
Singler, John V. 1991. ‘‘Liberian Settler English and the ex-slave recordings: A comparative
study’’. In Guy Bailey, Natalie Maynor, & Patricia Cukor-Avila, eds.: 249–74.
Stoddard, Albert. 1949. Animal Tales Told in the Gullah Dialect (I-III). Washington: Library
of Congress, A.F.S. Collection (Long playing record L46).
Sutcliffe, David J. 1992. System in Black Language. Avon: Multilingual Matters.
—— 1997. ‘‘Breaking old ground: African American English and the search for its past’’. In
Heinrich Ramisch & Kenneth Wynne, eds. Language in Time and Space: Festschrift in
Honour of Wolfgang Viereck. Stuttgart: F. Steiner, 233–51.
—— 1998a. ‘‘Gone with the Wind? Evidence for 19th-century African American speech’’.
Links & Letters 5: 127–45.
 David Sutcliffe

Sutcliffe, David J. 1998b. ‘‘African American Vernacular English: Origins and issues’’. Ph.D.
dissertation, University of Reading.
Viereck, Wolfgang. 1991. ‘‘In need of more evidence on American Black English: The
ex-slave narratives revisited’’. Neuphilogische Mitteilungen 92: 247–62.
Weldon, Tracey. 1998. ‘‘Exploring the AAVE-Gullah connection. A comparative study of
copula variability’’. Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University.
 Chapter 6

Something to shout about:

AAVE as a linguistic and cultural treasure

Mary B. Zeigler
Georgia State University

. Introduction

Language scholars, such as Finegan (1998), Napoli (1996), Traugott and Pratt
(1980), along with many others, introduce their discussions on linguistics with
at least two points. One is the intuitive mechanisms which formulate systems
for human communication. The other, and the one that is pertinent to more
people, is the social significance of language and its application to our everyday
lives. In one such preview discussion, O’Grady/Dobrovolsky/Aronoff (1993)
confirm that “language is many things’’ and that “it is hard to imagine much
significant social or intellectual activity taking place in its absence’’ (1). That
succinct estimation of the value of language to a community of speakers applies
quite aptly to African American Vernacular English (AAVE), for AAVE has
inestimable social and intellectual worth to its speech community.
AAVE is, indeed, many things. It is a system by which African Americans
communicate. It is a medium for African American thought. African American
writers use it as “a vehicle for literary expression’’ (ibid.). It is a social institu-
tion. AAVE is a persistent means by which the African American community
maintains a cultural unity. As a language whose origin and development are
synchronous with that of a country called America — colonial or postcolonial
— AAVE is a “factor in nation building’’ (ibid.). However, as can be seen from
the Oakland School Board’s various Ebonics positions that sparked the 1996–97
version of the Ann Arbor “Black English Trial’’ 20 years earlier, AAVE is “a
matter for political controversy’’. For linguists, it is a major source of informa-
tion about how a language grows and changes.
AAVE contains a rich depository of language factors by which the
African American community expresses a cultural self. These factors are
 Mary B. Zeigler

evident in the development of the internal components of the language —

sounds, words, rhythm, and sentential structures; their expression in exter-
nal modes of discourse; and their use within African American contexts.
They configure the AAVE communication system. They are maintained in
African American sacred and secular folkways, stories and songs that bear
witness to a language rich in social, cultural, and historical interactions. In
this discussion of AAVE as a linguistic and cultural treasure, I examine the
internal components and the external manifestations of shout(’n’), a social,
historical, and linguistic expression founded in the African American com-
munity. There is no AAVE modality more inclusive than shout(’n’) to ex-
press the linguistic complexity and the cultural richness of the AAVE com-
munity. The gospel story-song “Hold My Mule’’ (Shirley Caesar 1987), oth-
erwise known as “Shout’n’ John’’, is one exemplum of this AAVE cultural
and linguistic treasure:

I just want to take time. To tell you. A story. About a man called Shout’n’
John. John joined, a dead church. They didn’t believe in shout’n’. They didn’t
believe in dancin’ and speakin’ in tongues. But when they opened the doors of
the church, John joined that church. And when John joined that church, he
came in dancin’. EVERYTHANG, EVERYTHANG got disturbed — because
John was dancin’ all around the church. The deacons ran and sat him down.
He jumped back up. They tried to hold his legs; his hands would go. When
they turn the hands aloose, the feet were goin’. It’s just like fire! It’s just like
fire! — shut up in the bone.
They did everything they could to stop ol’ John from shout’n’. And when
they couldn’t finally stop him, they made up in their mind, “We got to go out
to John’s house y’all. For something is wrong with him. DOESN’T HE
KNOW, we don’t act like that in our church? DOESN’T JOHN KNOW, we’ve
got dignitaries in our church? We’re goin’! We’re goin’! We goin’ to John’s
house.’’
Well! When they got out there. They found this ol’ 86 year ol’ man; him
and a ol’ beat up mule. Plowin’. Plowin’. In the fiel’. They DROVE up, all of
the deacons. They got out of their fine cars. They walked over to John. John
looked around and said, “Whoa, mule!’’ Walked over to ‘em and said, “Breth-
ren, I know why you’ve come out here. You’ve come out here to tell me that
I praise the Lord too much. You’ve come out here to tell me that I dance too
much.’’ One of the deacons tol’ him, “IF YOU DON’T STOP SHOUT’N’, IF
YOU DON’T STOP DANCIN’, WE GON PUT YOU OUTTA OUR
CHURCH.’’
 Something to shout about 

John said to them, “WELL, PUT ME OUT! I can’t hold my peace. Did you
see ALL of that land you just drove up on?’’ He said, “God gave me ALL that
land. But you don’t want me to dance in your church’’. Said, “Look at my sons
and my daughters!’’ Said, “God gave me all of my children. NOT ONE TIME,
have I been to the courthouse. NOT ONE TIME, have I been to the cemetery.
But you don’t want me to dance in yo church?’’ Then he said, “Look at me. I’m
86 years old. I’m still ABLE, to walk down behind that ol’ mule. I’M STILL
ABLE, to harvest my own crop. But you don’t want me to dance in your church?
Listen Brother Deacons: If I can’t shout in yo church, hold my mule, I’m gon
shout right here’’. [And John commenced to SHOUT’N’ right there in the field.]

This story depicts a traditional Black vernacular style of church testifying

in conflict with a non-vernacular style. John’s actions in church and in the field
are a praise performance that expresses all of his joyful, emotion-filled thoughts
and feelings. His feelings are too much for words to express, so John must show
some physical sign. However, John’s SHOUT’N’ is in direct conflict with the
established decorum of the church. Caesar’s reference to a “dead’’ church con-
notes a manner of worship that lacks lively interaction and is devoid of public
displays of emotion. The “dignified deacons’’ expect appropriate words and
proper songs — not that “dancin’’’ expression that John lets erupt. But John’s
actions are more than just dancing. John comes from a vernacular tradition in
which one’s physical actions can suitably substitute for or enhance what mere
words cannot fully convey. In that instance, John’s action is “speech’’; it is a
“talking’’ that must be acted out. Hence, John’s SHOUT’N’ is, in essence, a
speech act because for John, SHOUT’N’ is speaking.

. History of shout(’n’) as a sign in the AAVE linguistic and cultural

treasure

This African American praise performance is historical in occurrence and in

disapproval. John Fanning Watson, one of the leading Methodist church fathers
of Philadelphia, complained in 1819 that Black campers at camp meetings were
committing “exceptional errors’’ (1819: 63) that were affecting the white camp-
ers as well. In their quarters, after the all-camp services were ended — and
away from the proper supervision and control of church leaders — the Blacks
struck up spiritual songs of their own invention. To Watson, it seemed as
though these songs inspirited dancing as part of the song:
 Mary B. Zeigler

With every word so sung, they have a sinking of one or [the] other leg of the body
alternately; producing an audible sound of the feet at every step, and as manifest
as the steps of actual Negro dancing in Virginia, etc. If some, in the meantime, sit,
they strike the sounds alternately on each thigh (Southern 1997: 88).

Southern (1997) reports this as the earliest account of a religious dance cere-
mony of African origin. At bush meetings (i.e., small meetings held in clearings
in the woods without use of tents or shed coverings), the same SHOUT’N’
practices of the camp meetings could be observed. Daniel Payne, an African
Methodist Episcopal bishop, was greatly upset when he encountered the follow-
ing at one of the bush meetings he attended:

After the sermon, they formed a ring, and with coats off, sung, clapped their hands
and stamped their feet in a most ridiculous and heathenish way (Southern
1997: 130).

. Shout(’n’) as a speech act

According to Fowler (1986), the most important approach to speech as action

is the theory of speech acts originally proposed by Austin (1962) and developed
by Searle (1969). Essentially, language use has a performative dimension. “The
linguist is interested in how language encodes meanings, and in such semantic
properties as well-formedness, ambiguity, [and] contradiction’’ (Fowler 1986:
104). One special quality of AAVE is that it infuses physical action with as
much meaning as it gives words. And in some instances, the action supplants
the words not only for succinctness but also for cogency and clarity in the tran-
sition of meaning. In the language of the AAVE speech community, the term
shout(’n’) has little ambiguity. Its expression means “unspeakable joy.’’ Its form
may incorporate many elements — hand-clapping, singing, and whooping
among them — but foot stompin’ is always the core structure. The only contra-
diction in shout(’n’) as a speech act is with African Americans like Shout’n’
John’s “dignified deacons’’ who reject this physical response to life experiences
which come out of a mutual heritage. These African American “dignitaries’’ —
otherwise called bourgeie [bu i] because of their ultra middle-class attitudes
about social decorum — disapprove of the adherence to the practices of a
grass-roots heritage and consider them improper and inappropriate behavior.
Speech act philosophers believe that language has a pragmatic function:
“utterances are used to perform actions as well as to communicate prop-
ositions’’ (Fowler 1986: 104), particularly certain utterances containing
 Something to shout about 

performative verbs. Rather than utter the word, John and his shout’n’ brothas
and sistas perform the act to which the word refers and which, thereby, consti-
tutes its meaning.
Linguists say that speech acts also have conditions of appropriateness
(Fowler 1986: 105). Shout’n’ as a performance embodies the conditions for the
speech. As a performative modality, shout’n’ is subject to the conditions of
appropriateness. The “dignified deacons’’ consider the conditions for shout(in’)
extremely limited and inappropriate: there are “dignitaries’’ present; no out-
ward demonstration is proper. John considers shout’n’ appropriate in any situ-
ation in which he feels compelled to express the inexpressible. Whether in the
church or in the field, shout’n’ is John’s enacted speech, though not intended,
necessarily, as a communication for any other audience but a divine one.

. Shout(’n’) as an AAVE linguistic sign

What is shout’n’? What is it that Black people do when they shout? According
to Geneva Smitherman, shout means:
(1) To express religious/spiritual ecstasy, a state of deep emotion brought on by a
religious experience; may be in the form of hollering, whooping, moaning. (2) By
extension, in the secular world, especially during performances at concerts, clubs,
and in other places of entertainment, to express high emotion brought on by the
musical entertainment, gittin the spirit from the music (1994: 204).
American dictionaries (e.g., Merriam Webster, American Heritage) tend to
define the terms with respect to the vocal sounds accompanied by the physical
act. According to these dictionaries, the verb shout means ‘to utter a sudden
loud cry, or to say with a loud, strong cry in order to command attention.’ And
the noun describing the performance indicates a ‘loud outcry or call; a holler,
whoop, or yell’.
According to traditional dictionary sources, definitions of the verb shout
center on “hollering or whooping,’’ but Smitherman (1994: 204) refers strongly
to the expression of “religious experience and spiritual ecstasy’’. Yet the shout
modality as described in our story about Shout’n’ John and castigated in the
historical accounts of the church dignitaries seems to involve a full-bodied
physical activity not included specifically in these definitions, though it may be
suggested by Smitherman’s git happy or git the spirit. Are these two sources for
the definition of shout confluent or discontinuous? In other words, do they
present connected meanings joined in a single word (i.e., confluent or
 Mary B. Zeigler

polysemic) or do they represent separate, unrelated meanings (i.e., discontinu-

ous or homonymic)?
If shout is a polysemic form, then it is a single lexical unit with several levels
of meaning from minimal to extended. On the other hand, if shout is a hom-
onymic form, then it represents two lexical units — two words with the same
form but different meanings. Consider the several criteria for comparison: the
word’s etymology or historical origin, the various antonyms and synonyms, and
any commonality between the different meanings.
Consider first the homonymic argument. If the AAVE shout and the LWC
(Language of Wider Communication) shout are homonymic, then the AAVE
shout is a different word with a different meaning and a different set of refer-
ences from the LWC shout. Taking into account the long, persistent history of
shout’n’ in African American vernacular culture since the early 19th century
(e.g., Southern 1997; Johnson 1933; Payne 1888; Watson 1819) and given the
research linking African American languages to linguistic ancestors in West and
Central Africa (e.g., Holloway 1990; Thompson 1983; Vass 1979), it is possible
for an African creolist to consider the AAVE shout a product of relexification.
This lexical phenomenon occurs when there is vocabulary replacement based
on the dominant language of the area. In this instance, an African-based ritual
with vocal sounds familiar to Anglo-Americans but accompanied by physical
and emotional activities familiar only to Africans could have been renamed
when brought by Africans into America. In Africa, the Niger-Congo civiliza-
tions practice rituals in which the participants celebrate by dancing, singing,
handclapping and whooping, with dancing being the fundamental mode.
Therefore shout is a highly probable candidate for relexification.
According to numerous studies of African American folk ways, the term
shout refers specifically to the movement and is only coincidentally the same
as the English word meaning a vocal exclamation (Parrish 1942, 1992; Turner
1942; Joyner 1985; Rosenbaum 1984, 1998). Most sources connect the mainte-
nance of the shout tradition with the Gullah, or Geechee, people of the coastal
islands off South Carolina and Georgia, many of whom were West African
Muslims (Lincoln 1984: 155). Joyner (1985) called the Gullah people’s shout
tradition a “creative Afro-Carolinian adaptation of a West African ring dance
performed to complex drum rhythms.’’ Lorenzo D. Turner (1949) traces shout
to the Arabic word saut (pronounced like “shout’’) in use among the Muslims
of West Africa designating the religious ring-dance; the word meant ‘to run and
walk around’ (Turner 1949: 202). A similar expressive behavior is widespread
in other regions of the African diaspora where African customs could be main-
 Something to shout about 

tained and practiced more freely than in America and where Islamic religious
practices were customary. As a matter of fact, similar ritual performances occur
with striking continuity with the components of the African American shout’n’.
In Candomblé in Brazil, Shango in Trinidad, Voudou in Haiti, Santeria in
Cuba, and African Cumina in Jamaica, the essential elements of the religious
ritual include drumming, singing, dancing and the ecstatic behavior known as
’spirit possession’ (Raboteau 16–17). In African America, despite the influence
of Protestantism on African forms, shout’n’ is essentially African. Even when,
because of slave codes or church doctrine, drumming was forbidden, the ritual
performers maintained the strong rhythmic beat in the shout by clapping their
hands, slapping their thighs, patting or stomping their feet, and tapping a stick
on the ground. Webster’s Third International Dictionary confirms that shout
means ‘to give expression to religious ecstasy often in rhythmic movements (as
shuffling, jumping, jerking);’ this may specifically refer to taking part in a ring
shout. One who shouts is referred to as a Shouter, a member of a religious sect
in the West Indies which is characterized by the use of ceremonies resembling
African rituals (Webster’s Third).
The shout performance is found in other African languages and cultures
in West Africa, though it may be referred to by other names. The following
sentence from a Yoruba speaker illustrates a particular occurrence of a word
having the connotation of shout, meaning to express joy or praise through cele-
bration: we /wε/, as in the sentence A fe lo we ile Mary (/a fε lɔ wε ile mεri/).
The sentence translates from Yoruba to English as, “We want to shout about/
celebrate/spiritually anoint Mary’s house.’’ The word we /wε/ means “to cele-
brate or express joy by dancing, singing, whooping’’ — a word which denotes
all of the characteristics exemplified in John’s shout’n’ and reported in the
histories of the Methodist church leaders. We can be performed anywhere —
in the praise house, in the street, on the rooftop. Thus words such as we from
Yoruba or from any African language or African-originated culture provide
additional evidence that the experiences which made shout a sign in African
American culture could very well have come from an African-Arabic word
rather than an English word. However, given the close phonemic similarity
between the two words and the greater familiarity of the English word, it is
likely that the AAVE shout would be considered a relexification due to “the
replacement of the phonological shape of a root of one language . . . by a root
with roughly the same meaning from another language’’ (Bakker/Muysken
1995: 44). By these accounts, then, the AAVE shout is a homophonous form.
Additional analyses of the AAVE shout and the LWC shout as homopho-
 Mary B. Zeigler

nous forms would turn to the origins and history of the words as recorded by
lexicographers. Etymologies which refer to an African-derived AAVE shout do
not appear in general reference dictionaries though shout song, ‘a rhythmic
religious song used esp. by Blacks and characterized by responsive singing or
shouting between leader and congregation’ (Merriam, 10th ed.) is recorded as
20th century (i.e., 1925). In Webster’s Third, the historical origin of shout de-
rives from Middle English shouten; the word had its first appearance in texts as
early as the 14th century. Of the several entries for that term, the LWC mean-
ing referring to “a loud burst of voice’’ appears as entry 1. The term ring shout
“a religious gathering’’ is entry 3. The AAVE meaning referring to giving ‘ex-
pression to religious ecstasy often in vigorous rhythmic movements (as shuf-
fling, jumping, or jerking)’ appears as entry 4.
On the other hand, examine the polysemic argument. Considering the
common reference to vocal sound in LWC and AAVE sources, a semanticist
may well consider shout polysemic (see Figure 1). First, the minimal definition,
‘loud outcry’, occurs in both. Next, this use of the LWC shout is mentioned in
LWC sources centuries before historical references to the AAVE term. Finally,
the AAVE shout extends that LWC primary meaning of an essentially vocal com-
munication to an essentially nonvocal act in the African American community.
Wait! Let’s break it down. In other words, we sayin’ that shouting as used
in LWC denotes a vocal act of communication in which one ‘utters a loud cry
or speaks in a loud voice, more than likely, to command attention.’ But
shout’n’ as DONE by Black folks is a whole-body act: a foot-stomping, limb-
flailing, arm thrashing, sweat-popping, body-hurling, soul-freeing good time.

Referent 1a=‘sacred, emotional

expression of praise’
1. ‘Body action; stomp’
Referent 1b=‘secular, emotional
expression of joy’
Shout
Referent 2a=‘attention getter’
2. Vocal sound; yell’
Referent 2b=‘astonished utterance’

Figure 1. Shout and the theory of signification

 Something to shout about 

Shout’n’ signifies the shouter’s innermost feelings; feelings too big and spirit-
consuming to be reduced to mere words. It expresses joy, sorrow, and maybe
even pent-up emotional burdens newly awakened. The linguistic and cultural
complexities of the AAVE shout cannot be summed up as a mere extension of
an LWC vocal reference. Ultimately, the shout modality has form, function,
and meaning within a context wholly defined by AAVE heritage and usage in
the AAVE community.
The shout(’n’) sign is a communication structure which consists of a com-
bination of object or event and its meaning. Morris (1938: 81) viewed the pro-
cess in which something functions as a sign (i.e., semiosis) as having four parts:
(1) a vehicle, or signifier (that which acts as a sign, or a mediator); (2) a
designatum (that to which the sign refers, or that which is taken account of);
(3) an interpretant (the effect in virtue of which the sign vehicle is a sign); and
(4) an interpreter (the organism upon which the sign has an effect, or the agent
of the process) (Schiffrin 1994: 191). “Something is a sign of a designatum for
an interpreter to the degree that the interpreter takes account of the
designatum in virtue of the presence of the sign’’ (Schiffrin 1994: 191). In the
shout’n’ sign, the sign vehicle is the rhythmic or spirited stomp which may or
may not be accompanied by music; the designatum is “joy, unspeakable joy;’’
the interpretant is a highly emotional, praise-giving, full-body action; and the
interpreter is the shouter, for it is upon this person that the shouting has the
greatest effect.
The AAVE shout demonstrates a meaning that is of special significance to
others sharing the same vernacular community. The shouter is showin’ some
sign.

. The morphology of the shout(’n’) modality

The AAVE shout(’n’) performance consists of two obligatory components and

one or more optional components. The two obligatory elements of the AAVE
shout–emotion and stomp–may be modified by ancillary elements which I call
shoutemes (-eme as in morpheme). A shouteme denotes a shout constituent
which may accompany the stomp and may be integrated within the shout
experience. Shoutemes have meaning of their own and can occur in other
environments. They take several forms, including (1) vocal sound (e.g., cry-
ing, screaming, moaning, wailing, singing) and (2) body motion (e.g., arms
and hands pulled down firmly to the side or reaching into the air, shoulders
 Mary B. Zeigler

arching up and forward or down and back, head thrown back, handclapping).
Comparable to the LWC shout which has obligatory tense and is a main
verb, the AAVE shout has the obligatory components emotion and stomp. Just
as tense is an auxiliary which directly influences the form and meaning of the
verb within the context of the discourse, emotion is an auxiliary which directly
affects the stomp. The level and intensity of emotion determines the speed,
rhythm, and manner of the stomp within the context of the shout experience.
The types of stomp are arhythmic stomps and rhythmic stomps:
arhythmic : uncontrollable throes of spirit possession
: rhythmic portions interrupted by erratic movement
rhythmic : holy dance
: ring shout
The stomp — or shuffle, tramp, stamp — is the essential component of
shout(’n’) and may or may not be accompanied by a shouteme. The stomp itself
is the experience of both feet being pressed forcefully across the floor or
ground, either simultaneously or alternately, propelling the body forward. Nei-
ther foot crosses the other. Even the shout called “holy dancing’’ does not allow
crossing of the feet.

. Showin’ the shout’n’ sign

Shouters show signs in occurrences that are not strictly religious, though
they might be quite spiritual or spirited. The shout modality has come to be
applied still further to a sense beyond sacred expression. Smitherman (1994)
recognizes the shout “in the secular world, especially during performances
at concerts, clubs, and in other places of entertainment, gittin the spirit
from the music’’ (204). The lead singer of the Isley Brothers calls out, “You
know you make me wanta,’’ and then the basers, the rest of the R & B
group, join in to respond and complete the call, “Shout.’’ And so the song
continues with the call and response rhetorical style which describes the
shout performance at the same time that it encourages the singers and their
audience to perform it:
You know you make me want ta SHOUT!
Throw my hands up and SHOUT!
Throw my head back and SHOUT!
Stomp my feet, now, and SHOUT!
 Something to shout about 

Then the audience joins in after the invitation: “Come on now and SHOUT!’’
They are showin’ some outward sign of the fire within. An AAVE spiritual
says, “If you feel it, if you believe it, you oughtta show some sign’’. Truly, that
is what shout’n’ is all about: “showin’ some sign’’ — a sign of an AAVE cultural
treasure.
One of the cultural and linguistic treasures of the AAVE community is its
ability to “show some sign’’ in its secular and sacred renditions of the ritual of
spirited and spiritual celebration. The tradition celebrated in Shout’n’ John
by John and rejected by the dignified church fathers is catalogued in a 20th-
century history of shouters from ragtime to rap.
In 1916 James Price Johnson’s piano composition, “Carolina Shout’’, used
the shout’n’ sign to bring the downhome sophistication of ragtime into the
uptown jive of jazz. Then Thomas Wright (Fats) Waller took Johnson’s Stride
piano creation to new levels of swinging intensity. It is sho ‘nough showin’ the
shout’n’ sign.
James Brown shows the shout’n’ sign. When he squeals, “I feel good!’’, and
does a drag-shuffle-slide across the floor, he’s showin’ the sign of the ancestors.
When other African Americans do “the James Brown,’’ they are sharin’ and
showin’ the same sign.
Flip Wilson does it. When he becomes Rev. Leroy and cuts a buck in the
pulpit with head thrown back and arms stretched high, he’s showin’ some sign.
The shout’n’ sign is one of the cultural treasures that award-winning Afri-
can American writers such as Paule Marshall and Toni Morrison utilize in their
literary expressions to foreground their ethnicity. Paule Marshall does it in
Praisesong for the Widow (1983).
Through the open door the handful of elderly men and women still left, and who
still held to the old ways, could be seen slowly circling the room in a loose ring.
They were propelling themselves forward at a curious gliding shuffle which did not
permit the soles of the heavy work shoes they had on to ever once lift from the
floor. Only their heels rose and then fell with each step, striking the worn pine
board with a beat that was as precise and intricate as a drum’s, and which, as the
night wore on and the Shout became more animated, could be heard all over
Tatem.
They sang: “Who’s that riding the chariot? Well, well, well . . .’’ [They] used
their hands as racing tambourines, slapped their knees and thighs and chest in
dazzling unsyncopated rhythm. They worked their shoulders; even succeeded at
times in giving a mean roll of their aged hips. They allowed their failing bodies
every liberty, yet their feet never once left the floor or, worse, crossed each other
in a dance step.
 Mary B. Zeigler

Arms shot up, hands arched back like wings: “Got your life in my hands. Well,
well, well . . .’’ Singing in quavering atonal voices as they glided and stamped one
behind the other within the larger circle of their shadows cast by the lamplight on
the walls. Even when the Spirit took hold and their souls and writhing bodies
seemed about to soar off into the night, their feet remained planted firm. “I shall
not be moved’’.
It wasn’t supposed to be dancing, yet to Avey, standing beside the old woman
[her great-aunt Cuney], it held something of the look, and it felt like dancing in
her blood, so that under cover of the darkness she performed in place the little
rhythmic trudge. She joined in the singing under her breath: “Got your life in my
hands. Well, well, well . . .’’ (34–5).

When Avey’s great-aunt Cuney is caught crossing her feet in a ring shout
being held at the clapboard church on Tatem Island, she fervently denies
having been dancing. She claims it had been the Spirit moving powerfully in
her which had caused her to forget and cross her feet (Marshall 1983: 33).
Three generations later, Avey finds herself reliving her great aunt’s ring shout
in the Carriacou Tramp. Her feet glide forward in the circle of elders, her soles
never leaving the ground, her entire torso swaying, arms bent, shoulders work-
ing, head arched high and weaving (Marshall 1983: 248–50).
Toni Morrison shows a similar ancestral sign in her Pulitzer Prize-winning
novel Beloved (1987), set in 1873. When Baby Suggs, holy, the unchurched
preacher, takes her great big heart and her congregation down to the bush ar-
bor, she shows them the shout’n’ sign.
When warm weather came, Baby Suggs, holy, followed by every Black man,
woman and child who could make it through, took her great heart to the Clearing
— a wide-open place cut deep in the woods nobody knew for what at the end of
a path known only to deer and whoever cleared the land in the first place. In the
heat of every Saturday afternoon, she sat in the clearing while the people waited
among the trees.
After situating herself on a huge flat-sided rock, Baby Suggs bowed her head
and prayed silently. The company watched her from the trees. They knew she was
ready when she put her stick down. Then she shouted, “Let the children come!’’
and they ran from the trees toward her.
“Let your mothers hear you laugh,’’ she told them, and the woods rang. The
adults looked on and could not help smiling.
Then “let the grown men come,’’ she shouted. They stepped out one by one form
among the ringing trees.
“Let your wives and your children see you dance’’, she told them, and
groundlife shuddered under their feet (87).
Finally she called the women to her. “Cry’’, she told them. “For the living and
 Something to shout about 

the dead. Just cry’’. And without covering their eyes the women let loose.
It started that way: laughing children, dancing men, crying women and then
it got mixed up. Women stopped crying and danced; men sat down and cried;
children danced, women laughed, children cried until exhausted and riven, all and
each lay about the Clearing damp and gasping for breath. In the silence that fol-
lowed, Baby Suggs, holy, offered up to them her great big heart . . . .
She told them that the only grace they could have was the grace they could
imagine. That if they could not see it, they would not have it (88) . . . .
“Hear me now, love your heart. For this is the prize.’’ Saying no more, she
stood up then and danced with her twisted hip the rest of what her heart had to
say while the others opened their mouths and gave her the music. Long notes held
until the four-part harmony was perfect enough for their deeply loved flesh’’ (89).

During the ‘90s, Kirk Franklin, a spirited and spiritual rapper, continues
showing the ancestor’s shout’n’ sign, intersecting the spiritual and the secular.
Every African American hears the core message of the sign in the song “Stomp’’
by God’s Property from Kirk Franklin’s Nu Nation album (1997):
Lately I’ve been going through some things that’s really got me down. I need some-
one, somebody to help me come and turn my life around. I can’t explain it. I can’t
obtain it. Jesus Your love is so, it’s so amazing. It gets me high, up to the sky. And
when I think about Your goodness it makes me wanna STOMP. Make me clap my
hands, makes me wanna dance and STOMP. My brother can’t you see I’ve got the
victory STOMP . . . .
“G.P. are you wit’ me?’’ “Oh yeah. We having church, ain’t going nowhere!’’
“G.P. are you wit’ me?’’ “Oh yeah. We having church, ain’t going nowhere!’’

Kirk Franklin, following the tradition of the shout leader, or songster, calls
to God’s Property, “GP, are ya wit me?’’ And they — the basers–respond, “Oh
yeah. We havin’ church, ain’t goin’ no where’’. Then, as audience-participants,
other African Americans, listening and participating across the air waves, auto-
matically break out with a foot-stomping, resounding “SHOUT’’ before they
realize the song’s response word is “STOMP’’. “Stomp’’ — “Shout,’’ the two are
practically inseparable in the AAVE interpretation of the shout’n’ sign. This
shout’n’ sign links the AAVE community to a common cultural and linguistic
identity.

. Conclusion: But why do Black people shout?

Marquetta L. Goodwine from the Gullah Connection of St. Helena Island,

South Carolina, says, “Hunnuh Hafa Shout Sumtimes!!!’’ (1998).
 Mary B. Zeigler

The McIntosh County Shouters of Bolton, Georgia, say, “Shout Because

You’re Free’’ (Rosenbaum et al. 1998).
Ralph Wiley (1991) says provocatively that, “Black people tend to shout in
churches, movie theatres, and anywhere else they feel the need to shout, be-
cause when joy, pain, anger, confusion and frustration, ego and thought, mix
it up, the way they do inside Black people, the uproar is too big to hold inside.
The feeling must be aired’’ (2).
First of all, Black people are too happy just being able to shout not to take advan-
tage of the luxury (1) . . . . Black people shout because they want the answers to
questions that go unasked . . . . Black people tend to shout because nothing has
come close to making those of the African Diaspora less determined, or less artis-
tic, or less inventive, or less adaptable, or less productive, or less wise, or less cre-
ative, or less quite stupendously gorgeous (Wiley 1991: 2).

A language that bespeaks the traditional folk behavior of a speech commu-

nity and expresses its culture and concerns in words, rhythms, and rituals —
as does AAVE — is a linguistic treasure. The value of a linguistic treasure lies
not in being rare nor in being reserved for special use. Its value lies in its avail-
ability for everyday use. With everyday use, AAVE generates and retains a
wealth of expression as exemplified by shout (’n’) for the maintenance and
nurturance of its community — a wealth which phattens (‘enriches’) the AAVE
speech community, a worth which enlivens the LWC community, a value
which invigorates the linguistic community.

Notes
. See Smitherman (1981) for more information about the 1979 Ann Arbor case.
. I attempted to capture in print the rhythm, intonation, and certain pronunciations of
this gospel folk song recorded before a live audience through punctuation, spacing, and
re-spellings.
. Git happy and git the spirit, as defined by Smitherman (1994), mean “to be overcome
with religious ecstasy; to be possessed by the Holy Spirit. Expressed by shouting, crying
with joy, religious/holy dancing, talkin’ in tongue’’ (123). Notice that shouting is one of
the means of expression along with “crying’’ and “holy dancing’’.
. According to Lincoln (1984), “Among the millions of Blacks who came as involuntary
immigrants, perhaps as many as twenty percent were Muslims (155) . . . . It was the Black
Muslims, the ‘Moors’ among the Spanish conquistadors, who first introduced Islam to
the New World . . . In the English colonies the only Muslim presence was among the
slaves imported from Black Africa’’ (157).
 Something to shout about 

. James Price Johnson, born February 1, 1891, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, died No-
vember 11, 1955, in New York City. He was an important transitional figure between
ragtime and jazz piano styles. His style became known as Stride. Although some critics
think Johnson’s 1921 recording of “Carolina Shout’’ sounds a lot like Ragtime, they still
consider it the first recorded Jazz piano solo.
. James Brown repeats the shout’n’ sign in the 1962 song “Shout and Shimmy.’’
. Flip Wilson, born Clerow Wilson in December 1933, died November 25, 1998, at age 64.
He created and made popular the character Reverend Leroy in his variety show “The Flip
Wilson Show’’, which ran weekly on television from 1970 to 1974. Rev. Leroy, the minis-
ter of the Church of What’s Happenin’ Now, was modelled after ministers Flip Wilson
had heard while growing up.

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—— Feb. 1962. “Shout and shimmy’’. Shout and Shimmy (cut #2).
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 Mary B. Zeigler

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 Something to shout about 

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 Chapter 7

“Nuthin’ but a G thang’’:

Grammar and language ideology in
Hip Hop identity

Marcyliena Morgan
Harvard University

. Background: “Don’t try to fade this’’

If one were to believe the current news media hype, Hip Hop music has only
recently become the favored music of youth throughout the U.S. and indeed
the world. In fact, Hip Hop began in the late 1970s and has been a significant
presence in urban African American communities since the late 1980s (Fab 5
Freddy 1992; Jones 1994; Toop 1991). With the introduction of the Hip Hop
salutations “Word!’’ and “Word Up!,’’ the Hip Hop nation has emerged as a
cultural, social, and political force, constituted and instantiated through lan-
guage style, often illustrated in the rap itself. Hip Hop arose as a youth response
to the political ideology of the Reagan–Bush era and its promotion of the social
and civic abandonment of urban schools and communities in the U.S. The
music, sounds, and lyrics from some of Hip Hop’s most talented writers and
performers has resulted in what has undeniably become the one cultural insti-
tution that urban youth rely on for representation, honesty — keeping it real
— and leadership.
In 1996, there were 19 million young people aged 10–14 years old and 18.4
million aged 15–19 years old living in the U.S. (Chadwick/Heaton 1996).
According to a national Gallup poll of adolescents aged 13–17 (Bezilla 1993),
by 1992 rap music had become the preferred music of youth (26%), followed
closely by rock (25%). Though Hip Hop artists often rap about adolescent
confusion, desire, and angst, at Hip Hop’s core is the commitment and vision
of youth who are agitated, motivated, and willing to confront complex and
powerful institutions and practices to improve their world.
 Marcyliena Morgan

This chapter is part of a larger work on Hip Hop culture and language. It
explores the social organization and some of the language practices that both
constitute and mediate the Hip Hop community/nation and converge around
African American urban youth culture and identity. In some respects, Hip
Hop’s influence on the larger urban speech community is surprising. Because
of its homogeneity across regions (e.g. Baugh 1983; Labov 1972; Smitherman
1977), the African American speech community is often thought to be impervi-
ous to most political, social, historical, and geographical divisions and policies
that normally lead to significant language change toward the dominant culture.
In many respects the introduction of Hip Hop cultural beliefs and values has
resulted in a significant reclamation and restructuring of African American
language practices by youth who have, for the first time in urban African
American communities, intentionally highlighted and re-constructed regional
and local urban language norms. These norms and values essentially apportion
the urban community, thereby constantly marking people — young African
Americans — as cultural insiders or outsiders.
Hip Hop’s language ideology is consciously and often defiantly based on
urban African American norms, values, and popular culture constructed
against dominant cultural and linguistic norms. It thus relies on the study,
knowledge, and use of African American English (AAE) and General American
English (GAE) linguistic features and principles of grammaticalization. This
language ideology has been operating since the late 1970s and did not have
sweeping consequences until the middle 1980s. At that time, technology
shifted and intimate friendship networks, families, and crews based on Hip
Hop artists became prominent outside of the East Coast. This resulted in new
speech community formations and a drive to distinguish and articulate lin-
guistic characteristics to represent major cities and regions on the East and
West Coasts. This drive initially resulted in the marginalization of the South-
ern U.S. and the Midwest. But as Hip Hop cultural norms of local representa-
tion stabilized, the South’s ‘‘Third Coast’’ and ‘‘Dirty South’’ contingent found
permanent recognition. Hip Hop urban language ideology has also resulted in
an increase of widespread yet locally marked lexicon and an awareness of the
importance of phonology (mainly working class) — especially the contrasts
between vowel length, consonant deletion, and syllabic stress — in represent-
ing urban cultural space.
This discussion is based on an ongoing study of fifteen years of research
that incorporates observations of young people at play, in underground venues,
open-mic sessions, concerts, and rap contests. It also includes ethnographic
 “Nuthin’ but a G thang’’ 

interviews and analyses of conversations; letters and interviews in Hip Hop

magazines and rap sheets; radio and video call-in shows; and play lists. Besides
the researcher, those participating in fieldwork and/or contributing to this anal-
ysis include groups of 12–16 year olds and groups in their late teens to early
twenties. The U.S. cities include Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, and Atlanta.
Researchers also work in other parts of the Southern U.S., including Mobile,
Alabama, and parts of Mississippi.

. Hip Hop culture: “You wouldn’t understand the ghetto’’

In many respects, Hip Hop has done more to crystallize a young, urban Afri-
can American identity than any other historic and political change since the
late 1970s. While the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power struggles of the
1950s, 1960s, and 1970s may have introduced the promise of a united, cultur-
ally, politically, and linguistically homogeneous African American community,
Hip Hop members boldly and brazenly argue for the “real’’ in relation to
regional and local identities. Referring to Hip Hop as a Black urban cultural
institution may seem an overstatement, but its role in addressing modern
issues of morality, injustice, representation, and responsibility cannot be de-
nied. The frequent depiction of Hip Hop as nihilistic (De Genova 1995; West
1993) and some sort of postmodern glitch (Gilroy 1993a, 1993b) results from
a focus on aggressive (gangsta) raps and particular Hip Hop productions and
artists. While a focus on salacious and aggressive content may be a common
criticism of Hip Hop, it provides only a rudimentary view of the complex and
interactive workings of the Hip Hop community. In fact, there are a variety
of Hip Hop styles, including old school, hard core, gangster, social and politi-
cal consciousness, smooth, and others. The choice of style is associated with
how artists construct themselves or the type of message in the rap. Both men
and women use all styles, though some artists are strongly associated with
one type of rap.
Unlike rock and other musical genres, Hip Hop is based on the co-author-
ship of artists and urban youth communities. When one considers that Hip
Hop is represented by radio and video programs, hundreds of web sites, several
national magazines, underground clubs, neighborhood record stores, concerts,
newsletters, and community organizations, it is obvious there are complex
organizational and institutional structures and activities that support the phi-
losophy of rap culture. It is the preferred music for 67% of Black and 55% of
 Marcyliena Morgan

all non-White youth (Bezilla 1993) and is steadily becoming a staple of rock
performances and recordings. In the process, what has taken place is a new
form of youth socialization that explicitly addresses racism, sexism, capitalism,
and morality in ways that simultaneously expose, exploit, and critique these
practices. Rappers from Afrika Bambata of the Zulu Nation and the next group
or person to be lauded as the Hip Hop “flavor of the month’’ all refer to the
Hip Hop nation in terms of its vitality and as an alternative for urban youth
who face a bleak and often difficult passage into adulthood.
In Hip Hop culture, language is not simply a means of communication.
Rather, language use is viewed as a series of choices that represent beliefs and
have consequences. As with any case of language socialization (Schieffelin/Ochs
1986), participants in Hip Hop must learn the appropriate language for particu-
lar social contexts. In a sense, Hip Hop is constructed around the exploitation
and subversion of the following tenets of language philosophy and theory:

1. all sounds and objects have specific meanings in culture;

2. all languages have system;
3. all leaks in grammar can be exploited;
4. a society’s reference system or indexicality is often political; and
5. meaning is co-constructed and co-authored.

Artistic success in Hip Hop is often defined in terms of its relevance to the
urban community irrespective of its popularity with the non-African American
community. Consequently, performers always run the risk of appearing out-
dated and being removed from the public sphere by more vibrant and real
rappers. The tension and conflicting value systems between the two results in
a creative tension to “keep it real’’. Membership in the community is
instantiated and mediated through audience corroboration and collaboration.
The audience demonstrates loyalty to Hip Hop culture by vigilantly critiquing
the language as well as cultural and public representations of Hip Hop. The
right to represent the Hip Hop nation is substantiated by members’:
1. purchase of recordings,
2. memorization of rap lyrics,
3. freestyle practice (spontaneous, improvised, and/or re-stylized) perfor-
mance,
4. loyalty to crews and/or individuals, and, recently,
5. publication of lyrics and artists’ biographies on rap web sites.
The core of the Hip Hop nation is adolescent males and females between
 “Nuthin’ but a G thang’’ 

12 and 17 years old who exclusively listen to and memorize raps (Wheeler
1992); dress the current Hip Hop style; keep up with the current dances; and
often tag or at least practice writing raps. This younger group also practices
freestyle rapping and competes with each other over the best rap, delivery,
style, etc.
While the core purchases the most recordings and is essential to Hip Hop’s
stability as an artistic form, the most influential segment of the Hip Hop nation
is in its late teens to middle twenties. These long-term (LT) members also prac-
tice freestyle, participate in local and underground open-mic performances and
competitions, and identify with particular rap genres or crews. This segment
of Hip Hop often writes letters of praise or complaint to various Hip Hop pub-
lications or rap sheets to give props (‘respect’) to artists. They also disclose
which performer is wack (‘outdated or unacceptable’) or who drops phat tracks
(‘very good recordings’). Long-term members also serve as nation builders and
often offer political and historical commentary and context to current Hip Hop
styles and artists. They have the power to influence artists because they can
attend most Hip Hop venues at clubs and concerts and monitor the authentic-
ity of the audience and artist. If LTs designate that an artist has sold out, that
artist generally cannot perform without reprisals anywhere that Hip Hop mem-
bers congregate in the African American community. Most members of the Hip
Hop nation argue that there are at least two versions to every Hip Hop record
released in a record store: the one that goes to all audiences and the ‘real’ ver-
sion that is sold at concerts, clubs, and on the street.
Achievement in Hip Hop is related to creative and relevant writing, style,
and delivery that resonates with the audience. How one gains financial success
is not a serious issue unless the community perceives that the artist ignored the
core Hip Hop audience in order to achieve it. Clearly, youth outside of urban
areas are attracted to Hip Hop for the same reasons as its primary audience. If
the core audience rejects the artist because the words, referents, experiences,
and symbols evoked do not reflect the reality of the streets, suburbia also rejects
him or her. In this regard, Adler’s famous quotation that Hip Hop “. . . is
adored by millions in the streets and reviled by hundreds in the suites’’ (Adler
1991) is, at best, a limited view of the real relationship between the streets and
suites. Few artists can navigate the scrutiny and pressure of a crossover hit since
this form of success results in the LTs’ intense re-evaluation of the artist for
urban authenticity. Suburbia’s uncritical acceptance might signify that the artist
is a perpetrator, a term that is the equivalent of a spy and the antithesis of what
Hip Hop symbolizes.
 Marcyliena Morgan

. The Hip Hop crew: “Get in where you fit in’’

Though the Hip Hop speech community has always been comprised of DJs
mixing sounds, artists rapping and writing lyrics, graffiti writers, dancers, and
dress styles, the focus on each element can vary. In its early stages, Hip Hop
lyrics were largely related to the beat, sound, and rhythm generated by DJs. As
MCs became more of a focus, Hip Hop began to identify local membership and
describe and name neighborhoods, public transportation systems, highways,
etc. Since the East Coast (or East Side) was the birthplace of Hip Hop, its urban
terrain became common knowledge among Hip Hop members and the center
of African American urban culture. Not only did members learn about the
Bronx, Bedford Stuyvesant (Bedstuy), and Harlem, but also Hollis, New Jersey,
Jamaica, Queens, and avenues and streets like Houston, along with their local
pronunciations. Through Hip Hop artistry, the local descriptions of East Coast
areas were like a demographer and cartographer’s dream.
But on the West Side of the U.S., artists’ frustration and simmering desire
for regional recognition and respect as major contributors and innovators
erupted. While the 1987 release of Ice T’s debut album Rhyme Pays intro-
duced Hip Hop audiences to Los Angeles’ youth gang world view, it only
hinted at things to come. After all, Los Angeles, having unseated Chicago and
been crowned the second most populated U.S. city by the 1990 census, was
also experiencing an unprecedented Black exodus to suburbs and other parts
of the U.S. In a city where cultural variation and bilingualism are mainstays
of working class communities, the construction and exhibition of Los Angeles
symbols and metaphors guaranteed an ebullient, and sometimes menacing,
youthful African American presence. The ultimate emergence of the West as
not simply imitators and students of East Coast Hip Hop, but innovators with
a message and style, introduced a new development in Hip Hop culture. The
nature and extent of the change was not clear until 1989 when N.W.A. intro-
duced their album Straight Outta Compton, effectively placing California, and
Southern California in particular, on the Hip Hop map. Suddenly, Northern
California cities like Oakland and those in Southern California like Los An-
geles, Compton, Inglewood, Longbeach, and El Segundo found their place on
the Hip Hop landscape. Along with the cities came street names that defined
the terrain of African American communities such as Slauson, Rosecrans,
and Crenshaw.
With the establishment of place, the West Coast arose as distinct from the
East Coast in terms of geographical references, sounds, and social and cultural
 “Nuthin’ but a G thang’’ 

influences. For the first time, the Hip Hop community had to consciously
address whether the emergence of different regional styles constituted a split in
the Hip Hop nation. Young audiences and LTs aligned around artistic styles
and regional loyalties. The extremes that artists and their followers were willing
to go to in order to demonstrate East Coast and West Coast loyalties culmi-
nated in the deaths of two of Hip Hop’s most gifted performers, Tupac Shakur
and Notorious B.I.G. As both coasts asserted the right to define Hip Hop, dis-
tinct identities and performance style shifts began to emerge that further
instantiated regional difference. These shifts included music sampling (Rose
1994) and conscious language style choices. Yet instead of becoming more
vulnerable in the midst of rap battles and negative media hype, the Hip Hop
world became stronger through the dominance of family and crew affiliation.

. Shout outs — and “a little flavah in your ear’’

The Hip Hop world is comprised of a range of artists who are often grouped
according to performance style, family (e.g., The Shaolin Family), crew and
house affiliation (e.g., Wu-Tang Clan), and by whether they reside on the
East or West Coast of the U.S. Style in Hip Hop may refer to the content of
the rap (hard core, gangsta’, socially conscious, sex), how the message is de-
livered (speed, quality of pitch or tone across syllables, phrasing, etc.), and the
audience or speech community for whom the message is intended. Member-
ship in a crew enables audiences to quickly understand the artist’s role and
status within Hip Hop culture. The heads of most crews are influential artists
and/or producers in Hip Hop. Crews insure that all members are employed
and they offer artists support in terms of production as well as protection
from unscrupulous record companies and other crews who compete within
the same market. Members are expected to be loyal and to protect and “rep-
resent’’ each other.
The importance of relationship and performance ties in Hip Hop creates
and reflects a speech community that highlights region, ideology, and lan-
guage style. The solidification of the Hip Hop crew as a family/business unit
ushered in an era of artistic and cultural stability in the Hip Hop community.
Crews are constructed within an African American cultural system based on
extended kinship ties and loyalties that are economical, emotional, and social.
If there is a failure to represent his or her crew and audience, there is a crisis
in the ‘family’ that must be resolved. Many artistic crews have neighborhood
 Marcyliena Morgan

crews and friendship networks that emulate them. These crews operate as
close social networks, offering support and critique that is based on loyalty
and respect.
The recognition of influences — giving props, representin’, recognizin’–as
well as exposing artists who do not acknowledge the source of their materials
is accomplished by directly stating the name of a person or group during a rap
and/or using the words or phrases of another artist who belong to the same
crew. This often includes the use of simile and metaphor, which requires “lo-
cal’’ Hip Hop knowledge in order to be understood. Local knowledge includes
lived experiences as well as familiarity with popular culture. For instance, the
use of the word “CREAM’’ indicates both respect for the group who popular-
ized the term (the Wu-Tang Clan) and its meaning (Cash Rules Everything
Around Me). Stephen DeBerry (1995) suggests there are three functions accom-
plished through simile in props. First, it indexes an artist as a member of the
urban community and/or a crew. Secondly, it serves as a mechanism to display
a rapper’s wit and/or lyrical ability, especially in freestyle sessions. Finally, it can
be used to exhibit levels of pedantic knowledge unparalleled by competitors
(DeBerry 1995). All artistic styles are influenced by the distinction between the
East and West Coasts, or “Sides,’’ of the country. Artistic styles are constructed
within a basic language ideology that can be loosely described as:
1. regularize General American English features,
2. highlight AAE and working class regional features, and
3. cast lexical havoc.
Because of a crew’s close affiliation and need to represent a particular
group of people, it is the smallest speech community unit in Hip Hop. Origi-
nally, crews were mainly based on childhood and family ties (e.g., Public En-
emy, Flavor Unit, and Boogie Down Productions); the type of music and
sounds sampled; and dress and rap styles. When N.W.A. introduced West
Coast gangsta rap, membership was also based on a notion of street-gang loy-
alty to the group. Any failure to represent was seen as an attack on the group
and was responded to accordingly. The gangsta approach to family meant that
no one could collaborate with another artist without agreement. Artists had
little or no say in compensation and often adhered to a style orthodoxy that
stifled artistic creativity. Though other artists began to reverse this trend —
especially Ice Cube on the West Coast — the success of the Wu-Tang Clan
(Table 1) proved that family support could lead to group stability, artistic free-
dom, and economic success.
 “Nuthin’ but a G thang’’ 

Because members of the Wu-Tang Clan had experienced unscrupulous

producers and record deals early in their careers, their reorganization within
the Shaolin Family was based on the desire to work as a group and to pursue
individual artistic freedom. Wu-Tang and the Shaolin Family fought for the
right to have control over their own group as well as the right to perform out-
side of the group without being disowned.
Besides focusing on performance skills and loyalty, Wu-Tang members
were very concerned with keeping as much of the revenue from their work as
possible (CREAM). Their philosophy meant that members could succeed as
individuals and as members. Shaolin’s sixteen members could appear under at
least twenty names and under different labels. Urban youth who looked to the
Hip Hop community for leadership began emulating a family that supported

Table 1. The Shaolin Family 

Groups Members
Wu-Tang Clan Prince Rakeem — The Rza
The Method Man
U-God
Rebel Ins
Shallah Raekwon
Ghostface Killah
Dirty
The Genius — Tha Gza
Inspectah Deck
Masta Killa (his part of Wu-Tang Clan)
N-Tyce N-Tyce
Shyheim Shyheim
Gravediggaz Prince Paul
Prince Rakeem The Rza
Frukwan
Poetic
Method Man The Method Man
The Genius The Genius — Tha Gza
Dirty Dirty
King Just King Just
Genius/Gza The Genius — Tha Gza
Raekwon Shallah Raekwon
Ghostface Killah
Ghostface Killah Ghostface Killah
Cappadonna Cappadonna
 Marcyliena Morgan

members and encouraged individual goals. New groups like The Fugees, fis-
sures created in crews like The Family (Puff Daddy) and Da Lench Mob (Ice
Cube), and the maturing of rappers like LL Cool J, Ice Cube, MC Lyte, and
others, contributed to the new definition of the Hip Hop community. Thus
family protection evolved and new members were introduced as guests on art-
ist’s recordings with the expectation that the crew would help with a solo ca-
reer. Though there had always been female rappers (especially MC Lyte, Queen
Latifah, and YoYo), this system opened the door for a women’s chorus (Missy
Elliot, Lil’ Kim, Da Brat, and Foxy Brown) to take center stage.

. The language of Hip Hop: “The sure shot’’

I’m outspoken, my language is broken into a slang
But it’s just a dialect I select when I hang (Special Ed 1989).

I’ll damage ya, I’m not an amateur

But a professional, unquestionable, without a doubt superb
So full of action, my name should be a verb (Big Daddy Kane 1988).

This section analyzes the language use on artists’ recordings and on radio,
television, and personal interviews. I asked fifty urban African American LTs
between the ages of 16 and 25 to identify their top five favorite Hip Hop artists
and crews. Six male artists and groups were selected who released recordings
during 1997–8 and represented a range of Hip Hop styles and regions. In order
to be included in the analysis, each artist had to appear among the top three
favorite artists on a person’s list. Women are not included in this analysis be-
cause, though individual women artists were listed as favorites (especially MC
Lyte and Queen Latifah), they were not among the top three of any individual’s
list. Draft transcripts were taken from web site lyrics like www.Ohhla.com (a
Hip Hop archive web site) and from lyrics available on album jackets. They
were then compared to the recording used for analysis and changed accord-
ingly.
Table 2 lists the artists and albums included in the analysis. Aceyalone
(pronounced ‘AC alone’) is a well-known freestyle artist in the Los Angeles
area. He has been rapping professionally since the late 1980s and is a member
of Freestyle Fellowship. Common (formerly Common Sense) is an artist from
Chicago. The Goodie Mob is a group from the South. Ice Cube is from Los
Angeles and was originally with N.W.A. Jay-Z is from New York and KRS-One
is from the Bronx. KRS-One is considered a significant figure in Hip Hop
 “Nuthin’ but a G thang’’ 

Table 2. Artists and recordings

No. of No.
Artist Album Region Year Songs Coded %
Aceyalone A Book of Human Language West 1998 17 16 94
All Balls Don’t Bounce 1995 15 13 87
Common One Day It’ll All Make Sense Mdwest 1997 17 13 76
Resurrection 1994 15 12 80
Can I Borrow a Dollar? 1992 13 6 46
Goodie Mob Still Standing South 1998 15 15 100
Soul Food 1995 19 19 100
Ice Cube Lethal Injection West 1993 12 10 83
The Predator 1992 16 12 75
Death Certificate 1991 20 15 75
Amerikkka’s Most Wanted 1990 16 14 88
Jay-Z Streets Is Watching East 1998 12 7 58
Vol. 2 Hard Knock Life 1998 14 14 100
Vol. 1 In My Lifetime 1997 14 14 100
Reasonable Doubt 1996 14 14 100
KRS-One I Got Next East 1997 20 13 65
KRS-One 1995 14 8 57
Return of the Boom Bap 1993 14 9 64
Totals 18 254 224

and East Coast Hip Hop in particular. Jay-Z’s 1998 recordings are actually two
related versions of one recording. Though many of the albums generated re-
mixes, they were not included in the overall analysis.
While family crew and East Coast and West Coast differences have emerged
as major components of Hip Hop, there is a specific language ideology which
informs all language practices. All participants incorporate American regional
urban Spanish styles in their pronunciation of vowels and in some aspects of
their syllable stress. Thus the West is more likely to show pronunciation influ-
ence from Chicano English and Spanish phonology while the East has a strong
Caribbean Spanish language influence. However, perhaps due to the territorial
nature of Los Angeles West Coast rap, only a few African American rap artists
have directly addressed their Spanish bilingual audience (e.g., Ice T). In con-
trast, East Coast artists like Raekwon, Nas, KRS-One, Master Ace, and Method
Man intersperse their raps with East Coast urban Spanish and popular Spanish
expressions.
 Marcyliena Morgan

. Semantic extension and inversion

Hip Hop artists constantly change word classes and meanings resulting in a
sense of chaos, movement, and urgency. The value of lexical items rises and
falls for reasons that range from poor artistic and musical expression to uncriti-
cal appropriation by suburban youth. This turmoil is often accomplished
through semantic inversion, extension, and the reclamation of GAE and AAE
forms. Semantic extension emphasizes one aspect of an English word definition
and extends or changes the focus of the word’s meaning. Thus, the word wack,
which means ‘unbelievably inept, inadequate, and deficient’ (Smitherman,
1994), is from the adjective wacky, which means ‘absurd or irrational’. In cases
of semantic inversion (Holt 1972; Smitherman 1994), an AAE word means the
opposite of at least one definition of the word in the dominant culture. For
example, the word down can have a positive meaning of support in the sen-
tence “I want to be down with you.’’ It can also be used as part of a locative
with “low’’ to mean ‘secretive’ as in “Keep it on the down low.’’ In the early
1990s, stressed STUpid meant ‘good’, though its usage is archaic in Hip Hop
today.
The process of extension has evolved in Hip Hop so that a word can be
extended from GAE and then inverted once it has stabilized as a Hip Hop
word. For example, the Hip Hop word ill has been grammaticalized to include
verbal usage (Stavsky/Mozeson/Mozeson 1995; Atoon 1992–99) and can also
mean ‘extremely positive’, though initially its meaning was categorically nega-
tive (e.g., Fab 5 Freddy 1992). Adjectival examples are in (1–3) and predicate
examples are in (4–7).
(1) Get ill if you wanna ill, smoke if you wanna smoke (Jay-Z and
Memphis Bleak).
(2) Who’s the illest shorty alive, I confess (Jay-Z and Memphis Bleak).
(3) Some of the realest, illest, chillest cats you may see (Common).
(4) I be illin’, parental discretion is advised still (KRS One).
(5) And bust and rushed and illed and peeled the cap (Ice Cube).
(6) For chillin, illin’, willin’ to do what I got to do (Goodie Mob).
(7) Big up Grand Wizard Theodore, gettin’ ill (KRS One).
Finally in AAE, a player was defined as someone who exploited people (espe-
cially women), but now it is a person who has extreme and enviable success
(Major 1994; Smitherman 1994). This meaning has led to player hater, a term
that refers to envious people who criticize others’ success. Now in Hip Hop, a
Ph.D. is an insult suggesting envy and refers to Player Hater Degree.
 “Nuthin’ but a G thang’’ 

. Working grammar

In conversation, performances, and recordings, Hip Hop members use multiple

applications of AAE features. For example, grammatical classes and meaning
are routinely shifted so that the verb fly also functions as an adjective in
Hip Hop that embellishes the noun as in: “Those boots sure are fly’’ and
“Jennifer Lopez was one of the fly girls on the television program In Living
Color ’’. The verb floss (e.g., “Do you want to floss with us?’’) has an extremely
positive meaning that incorporates coolness and focuses on the attitude and
intentionality of the subject. It follows the norms of action verbs (e.g. floss/
flossed/flossing). Artists also form new words by changing affixes (bound mor-
phemes) into independent lexical items. Thus the bound prefix dis- becomes
a free form with a negative meaning similar to its use in words like disrespect,
dispose, disdain, etc. It also exists as a verb that marks tense and aspect
(diss/dissed/dissing). Another striking aspect of Hip Hop language style is the
regularization of verbs. For example, the verb converse has been replaced with
the verb conversate, including its non-finite form conversating (e.g. conversate/
conversated/conversating): “They just be conversating with me all the time’’
(Smitherman 1994).
In addition to the grammatical norms described above, American working-
class phonological features, like consonant cluster simplification and vowel
length, are used to distinguish regional differences. Thus, the shortening of
vowels, the increase in glottal stops, and the reduction of consonants mark the
East Coast. In contrast, vowel lengthening marks the West Coast. The different
use of vowels in the West and consonants in the East is related to musical influ-
ences as well as social-class allegiances. Thus, the words didn’t and ghetto are
often pronounced /dʔn/ and /gεʔo/ on the East Coast and /di:n/ and /gε:do/ on
the West. Both the East and West Coasts are heavily influenced by a variety of
musical styles, though fast-paced Jamaican Dance Hall music is central to East
Coast rap and funk rhythms are central to the West Coast.

. Fantasizing and grammaticalizing: “Got you all in check’’

This analysis explores the type of innovation in terms of source of word and
grammatical category. Table 3 reveals the source of words used in the 18 re-
cordings I analyzed. In order for an item to be counted as a Hip Hop word (not
new word), it had to meet at least two of three usage criteria. First, a word had
 Marcyliena Morgan

to be used by other artists in recordings, interviews, or conversations in other

Hip Hop venues. These artists could be members of the same crew. Secondly,
the terminology had to be used by youth and LTs. The final criterion focuses
on new inventions that may not be directly derived from existing words. Rather
it recognizes words that focus on language ideology and that explore stylistic
phrasing, syllabification, compounding, and/or morphophonemics that could
also be applied to other similar words. For the purpose of this discussion, there
is a distinction between new words within Hip Hop and Hip Hop language
ideology.
New Words refer to words that are not directly derived from free mor-
phemes. They may also reflect a change in meaning, usage, and/or grammatical
category of a word previously occurring in GAE or AAE. For example, dis
(discussed above) is not only a bound morpheme but a new word that means
‘to reject, ignore, and embarrass’ (see also Smitherman 1994). Hip Hop lan-
guage ideology also favors adding bound morphemes (prefixes and suffixes) to

Table 3. New words

Artist Album No. of diff. % of NWs which are
NWs Adjs. Verbs Nouns
Aceyalone A Book of Human Language 8 12 0 88
All Balls Don’t Bounce 15 0 19 81
Common One Day It’ll All Make Sense 3 33 0 67
Resurrection 9 11 11 78
Can I Borrow a Dollar? 12 33 17 50
Goodie Mob Still Standing 17 12 29 59
Soul Food 15 33 27 40
Ice Cube Lethal Injection 9 22 11 67
The Predator 9 0 100 0
Death Certificate 7 17 0 83
Amerikkka’s Most Wanted 5 0 60 40
Jay-Z Streets Is Watching 8 78 0 22
Vol. 2 Hard Knock Life 24 46 8 46
Vol. 1In My Lifetime 20 25 5 70
Reasonable Doubt 28 35 10 55
KRS-One I Got Next 9 33 11 56
KRS-One 16 50 12 38
Return of the Boom Bap 8 24 38 38
 “Nuthin’ but a G thang’’ 

highlight an already established meaning or change in meaning. Other favored

bound morphemes include -est, -ous/-ious, -er, –ic, and un-/in-. Thus, the
words mack and mack daddy, though fitting within Hip Hop language style,
would not be counted as new words since they have existed in AAE with the
same meaning of ‘someone who exploits or hustles for sexual favors’ (Major
1994; Smitherman 1994). Likewise though I got my mack on suggests new us-
age, it is not a new word but a Hip Hop word since the grammatical category
remains a noun and the meaning of ‘hustler’ is retained. However, macka-
docious and mackness would be considered new words since they have strictly
adjectival functions, are used to refer to having power to control rather than
just hustling for sex, and were repeated by LTs during the time of its circula-
tion. Using these criteria, beautifullest is considered a Hip Hop word, though
not a new one, since it retains its GAE meaning. The adjectival category is the
same as ‘beautiful’, the addition of the suffix fits Hip Hop language ideology,
and the imitation among LTs is in reference to suffixation (e.g., He’s the most
particularest, realest, thoroughest, wickedest).
Aceyalone, in his recording All Balls Don’t Bounce, demonstrates the impor-
tance of bound morphemes on “Arhythamaticulas’’ in (8):

(8) oh yes welcome to hiphology please open up your workbooks to page

and break out your pads and pens and your calculators
for the first lesson of today is —
arhythamatic, arhythamaticulas
this rhythm is sick this rhythm’s ridiculous.
arhythamatic arhythamaticulas
this rhythm is sick this rhythm’s ridiculous (Aceyalone 1995).

In “Arhythamaticulas,’’ Aceyalone compounds and rhymes using variations on

the following formula: a+rhythm+(atic/culas/culous/culas). Innovations occur
at all levels and include:

1. reclaimed words (RCW) that have archaic English usage or were previously
used in AAE;
2. a change of word class (CWC) where a word is used as a different category
than in GAE grammar;
3. a reduced word (RW) to indicate when the term is being simplified by loss
of a consonant, syllable, or vowel; and
4. reduced words (RWS) when more than one word has been put together
and simplified in terms of a consonant, syllable, or vowel.
 Marcyliena Morgan

. Spelling ideology

Though each category is important unto itself, it is the relationship between

categories that makes words significant within urban Hip Hop youth culture.
New spellings follow English CVCV format and are an important signifier in
Hip Hop wording. New spellings often accompany a change in word meaning
and reflect AAE and Hip Hop pronunciation as well as knowledge of subver-
sion of GAE spelling rules and alphabet symbol ideology. For instance, when
writing about America’s negative treatment of urban youth, it is common to
find it spelled Amerikkka, using the initials for the White supremacist group the
Ku Klux Klan (KKK). New spellings also focus on English irregular spelling
rules. So, to give a compliment about an activity or object, one might say that
it is phat (pronounced “fat’’). Virtually every word that exceeds two syllables
and ends with the suffix -er is vocalized and spelled -a, -uh, or -ah, as in
brothah, (‘brother’) and sucka (‘sucker’). Similarly, words ending in -ing are
written as -in or -un, as in sumthin (‘something’) and thumpun (‘thumping’).

Table 4. Frequency of occurrence of the lex/morph category (for abbreviations,

see above)
Artist Album RCW CWC RW RWS
Aceyalone A Book of Human Language 0 3 65 19
All Balls Don’t Bounce 0 8 73 23
Common One Day It’ll All Make Sense 0 4 33 23
Resurrection 1 2 54 18
Can I Borrow a Dollar? 0 0 39 17
Goodie Mob Still Standing 2 2 105 44
Soul Food 1 2 115 28
Ice Cube Lethal Injection 1 0 83 12
The Predator 1 0 166 39
Death Certificate 4 5 129 24
Amerikkka’s Most Wanted 1 3 89 8
Jay-Z Streets Is Watching 1 14 39 15
Vol. 2 Hard Knock Life 2 24 105 70
Vol. 1 In My Lifetime 4 6 112 47
Reasonable Doubt 0 5 66 43
KRS-One I Got Next 1 2 58 15
KRS-One 0 1 39 16
Return of the Boom Bap 0 1 32 6
Total 18 19 82 1,402 467
 “Nuthin’ but a G thang’’ 

Spelling also reflects syllable reduction and vowel assimilation with rhotics and
semi-vowels. Thus, “all right’’ is spelled aight. Table 4 reveals the total number
of new words and their grammatical categories.
Reclaimed Words account for the smallest category of Hip Hop words and
the single most used words are mack and gat. The main exception is gaffled
used by Ice Cube: “I was hassled and gaffled in the back seat’’. According to
The Rap Dictionary (Atoon 1992–99) at www.rapdict.org, gaffle refers to ‘ha-
rassment by the police’ while its earlier usage was in reference to an ordeal.
A Change of Word Class often reflects potential grammaticalized forms of
words that have a high frequency of usage. As with ill described above, many
words listed share more than one grammatical category in GAE but are used in
one category in Hip Hop. Though one may say “I ain’t mad at ya’’, it is also com-
mon during rhymes to hear an emcee say “I drop madd rhymes’’, where “madd’’
is both a quantifier and an adjective that means ‘crazy and extreme’. This is also
true of the Hip Hop word loc. Smitherman (1994) and Atoon (1992–9) include
the following meanings and grammatical categories for this term.
1. (n) Term used for local person.
2. (n) Lock or locks, as in Jheri-curls, but always pronounced with the long
o as in “go’’.
3. (adj.) Crazy one, from the Spanish loco, often used for friends or locals in
a positive way (ususally pronounced ‘loke’).
4. (adj) To get high. “We was in the park getting’ loc’ed’’.
5. (v) To “go loc’’ means to get ready for a drive-by or to shoot someone.
This means putting on dark glasses, skullies, caps and generally getting
hard to identify.
Thus Jay-Z and Memphis Bleak rhyme:
Bounce if you wanna bounce, ball if you wanna ball
Play if you wanna play, floss if you wanna floss
Get ill if you wanna ill, smoke if you wanna smoke
Get ill if you wanna ill, smoke if you wanna smoke
Kill if you wanna kill, loc if you wanna loc.
The single Reduced Word, as in (9) and (10), is separated from multiple
Reduced Words, as in (11–14), to determine whether the reductions occur
within previously described AAE categories or haphazardly. These words are
not viewed as consonant cluster simplification as in most AAE studies
because, in many cases, there is an awareness of GAE pronunciation that is
being ignored or exploited. Unsurprisingly, the most common reductions (also
 Marcyliena Morgan

recognized in spelling) are morphophonemic and focus on the suffix -ing, as

in (9) and contracted negation. Thus, “didn’t’’ is written didin or did’n to rep-
resent the voicing of stops before nasals (West Coast) and the glottalization of
voiceless stops before nasals (East Coast). As reported in Rickford (1999) and
elsewhere, “I’m gonna’’/‘‘I’m going to’’ is written as Ima, as in (11) and (12),
reflecting the reduction of “gonna’’/‘‘going to’’ to “a’’. Finally, gots, as in (13)
and (14), is frequently used in place of “got’’/‘‘have’’ in order to highlight
urgency, unfairness, power, and, at times, necessity.
Examples of Reduced Words:
(9) Figg murder, crosses burnin’ in my front yard
KKK throwin’ up rallies but not no more in these parts (Goodie Mob).
‘(We) figure murder, crosses burning in my front yard. Klu Klux Klan
having rallies but no more in these parts’.
(10) Steada treated, we get tricked
Steada kisses, we get kicked
It’s the hard knock life!! (Jay-Z).
‘Instead of being treated, we get tricked. Instead of getting kisses, we
get kicked’.
(11) I’ma try my best, and if you real like I real (Jay-Z)
(12) I don’t know, but I’ma be on, for eons, and eons (Aceyalone).
(13) I just gots to say that, actin large I don’t play that (KRS One).
(14) I gots to live (Ice Cube).

. Conclusion
Ain’t nothin’ but a G thang, baaaaabay!
Two loc’ed out G’s so we’re craaaaazay!
Death Row is the label that paaaaays me!
Unfadable, so please don’t try to fade this (Hell yeah)
(Dr. Dre Featuring Snoop Doggy Dog 1992).

In Hip Hop, the Word is both the bible and the law; a source of worship and
competition. Through both commercial and underground media, the music
and words of Hip Hop transcend language, neighborhoods, cities, and national
boundaries resulting in international varieties where marginalized groups and
political parties appropriate Hip Hop as a symbol of resistance (e.g., Italy,
Spain, and Japan). Irrespective of its popularity, and whether one is intro-
duced to rap through radio, dance clubs, videos, cassette tapes, compact discs,
 “Nuthin’ but a G thang’’ 

news reports, congressional hearings, documentaries, or talk shows, Hip Hop

artists must constantly work to maintain the notion that they are real and true
to the streets.
Unlike the music, rhythm, and sounds of Hip Hop, the particular linguistic
ideology of the cultural and speech community — the ideology of the Word —
is the one aspect which, by definition, remains particularly urban African Amer-
ican. It is the core of the Hip Hop nation, the power, trope, message, and mar-
ket all in one. The representation of African American culture, popular culture,
language, and history as well as social, economic, and political life mediate Hip
Hop’s notions of reality. Thus, urban African American life is not simply repre-
sented in relation to in-group intersubjectivities, but through cultural symbols
and sounds, especially linguistic symbols, which signify membership, role, and
status so that, as Rossi-Landi (1983: 49) argues, “. . . words, expressions, mes-
sages circulate as commodities’’. In this respect, the Word in Hip Hop is at once
the realization of Foucault’s The Discourse on Language (1972), Bakhtin’s
Dialogic Imagination (1981), and Labov’s Language in the Inner City (1972).
Hip Hop uses language rules to mediate and construct a present which
considers the social and historicized moment as both a transitory and stable
place. It produces a frenetic dialectic by interspersing and juxtaposing AAE and
GAE conventions and norms (Morgan 1996, 1998). It is this particular energy
which attracts new generations of youth who study the history of Hip Hop and
recognize by interpreting and giving props through crew affiliations, using met-
aphors, etc. The constant re-working of language style provides a canvass on
which youth can experiment with each new generation of members. Thus,
unlike much of American throwaway popular culture, Hip Hop celebrates
memory and the moment. In so doing, it offers a political and social analysis
that, though too often simplistic, maintains a youth consciousness that cries
out to the dominant society and the world.

Notes

. This study would not have been possible without the assistance and comments from
several research assistants at UCLA and Harvard and youth working in various cities.
They include: Uma Thambiaya, Sumeeya Chishty Mujahid, Lauren Ferguson, Danielle
Beurteaux, Jenigh Garret, Jessica Norwood, Stephen DeBerry, Tarek Captan, and Dionne
Bennett. Ben Caldwell, Geneva Smitherman, John Rickford, and John Baugh have
provided valuable comments on this project. Funding has been provided by the Humani-
 Marcyliena Morgan

ties Institute of the University of California, Ford Foundation, and Harvard University
Graduate School of Education.
. Most section headings are accompanied by Hip Hop expressions and phrases found in
Hip Hop culture.
. The distinction here is similar to William Labov’s 1998 comparison of African Ameri-
can (AA) and General English (GE) components. The main difference is that AAE
includes usage across class and other interactions and discourses where speakers use
both dialects. GAE refers to middle class varieties of American English unless otherwise
noted.
. The August 22, 1999, Sunday New York Times ran two different columns on the increas-
ing popularity of Hip Hop — one focusing on White youth’s avaricious consumption of
Hip Hop (Neil Strauss) and the other on the necessity that it maintains its Black focus
(Touré).
. Afrika Bambata of the Zulu Nation is one of the originators of Hip Hop and often works
to maintain unity between artists.
. Until recently, the music sampled as background to raps was used without permission
or credit on Hip Hop recordings (Rose 1994; Wheeler 1992). In contrast, sanctions have
always been placed on performers who used words — raps or phrases — without rec-
ognizing or acknowledging the author. Consequently, artists usually mention other
performers and those who influence them in their raps.
. This chart is taken from www.onebadrap.com. The Shaolin Family has included other
members over time.
. The women included in other studies were Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Yo Yo, Da Brat, and
Missy Elliott.
. Fans of artists submit lyrics and update various versions of a song on www.Ohhla.com.
I consider this site the most important since it represents what the audience actually
believes an artist is saying and it represents loyalty from the audience or crews that relate
to particular artists.
. American regional urban Spanish refers to Spanish spoken by youth in urban areas. This
form of Spanish often includes some English words (e.g., Spanglish). The point here is
that youth from Spanish language-identified communities incorporate their language
practices within the general urban youth experience.
. ‘‘Semantics’’ is the term widely used to refer to this phenomenon, though it is actually
based on pragmatic relationships.
. Its Hip Hop meaning has evolved and it has been inverted as illustrated by Chris Rock’s
excited promotion of his comedy special, “It’s gon be ill y’all!’’ The evolution to predicate
adjective occurred with the inverted positive meaning of the word, though in many cases
the focus is ambiguous. There are also forms such as illified (Stavsky et al. 1995) and
Illtown which refer to Orange, New Jersey.
 “Nuthin’ but a G thang’’ 

. Several dictionaries are consulted in this process. Those referring to AAE include Major
(1994) and Smitherman (1994). Those referring to Hip Hop include “The Unofficial Rap
Dictionary’’ and several earlier sources (e.g. Fab 5 Freddy’s Rap Dictionary, The Source
magazine glossary) though the most common method for current usage was to ask LTs
and observe usage in context.
. Spelling symbol is discussed below. Aceyalone uses culas as a bound morpheme though
the spelling may be derived from calculus as part of a word play on arithmetic.
. The regularizing of spelling conventions is impressive considering the various literacy
histories of some of the writers. There is often a move toward iconicity in spelling,
though, except in cases like Amerikkka, in-depth local knowledge is necessary to locate
the sound-letter-symbol relationship.
. Reclaimed words also include archaic racial insults like jiggaboo, handkerchief head, and
so on.
. Bounce means ‘leave’ and ball is in reference to someone who has an enviable life.
. There are now web sites that focus on rap in nearly every language or nation, especially
Europe and Asia.
. By this I mean African American linguistic ideology, which assumes that each locality
relies on local knowledge and its own method of representation of life for youth.

References
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 “Nuthin’ but a G thang’’ 

Discography

Aceyalone. 1995. All Balls Don’t Bounce. Capitol. 30023.

—— 1998. A Book of Human Language. Project Blowed Records. PBRCD002.
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—— 1994. Resurrection. Relativity Records. ZK91017.
—— 1997. One Day It’ll All Make Sense. Relativity Records. EK91118.
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—— 1998. Still Standing. LaFace Records. 73008-26147-2.
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—— 1991. Death Certificate. Fourth and Broadway Records. CDL 57055.
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—— 1993. Lethal Injection. Priority Records. P253876.
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PRR50402.
—— 1997. Vol. 1 My Lifetime. BMG Music/Roc-A-Fella Records. 3145363922.
—— 1998. Vol. 2 Hard Knock Life. Def Jam Recordings/Roc-A-Fella Records. 314558902-2.
—— 1998. Streets Is Watching. Roc-A-Fella Records. 3145581322.
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41517-2.
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 Chapter 8

African American women: Talking that talk

Denise Troutman
Michigan State University

. Background

The linguistic behavior of my foremothers and sisters and present-day moth-

ers and sisters, African American women, is the topic of this chapter. To
date, linguistic research has focused primarily on men (European and African
American) and European American women. Smitherman (p.c.), the interna-
tionally-known African American woman scholar on African American Eng-
lish (AAE) and author of the widely read and cited book Talkin and Testifyin:
The Language of Black America (1977), acknowledges that even her book
reflects data gathered primarily from male speakers, just as the preponder-
ance of data collected by sociolinguists (and dialectologists) stemmed from
male speakers.
Over two decades ago, Thorne/Henley (1975) noted that “whole areas of
study . . . have been virtually untouched, for example, the communication pat-
terns of all-female groups, and of populations other than the white, middle
class’’ (30). This same absence still exists. West/Lazar/Kramarae (1997) reiterate
the omission of other voices in women’s language research similar to the obser-
vation in Thorne/Henley (1975):
much of what we ‘know’ about gender and discourse is really about white, middle-
class, heterosexual women and men using English in Western societies. Studies like
Etter-Lewis’s (1991), Goodwin’s (1990) . . . and Nichols’s (1983) [all of whose
works target African American females] are the exceptions, rather than the
rule (137).

Because of the dearth in research on the language of African American

women, this chapter, as well as my research in general, focuses on African
American women’s language (AAWL) and documents discourse features of
AAWL from a positive, insider’s frame of reference. I have found features
 Denise Troutman

of AAWL similar to European American women’s language. For example,

African American women collaborate in conversations, acknowledging and
building on other comments in conversations; they use empty adjectives (those
expressing emotional rather than intellectual evaluation, such as cute, precious,
sweet, adorable); and they use hedges (those words claimed to make utteran-
ces more tentative, less assertive (e.g., you know, kinda, well). Despite these
similarities, differences remain. For example, the minimal responses in the
discussions of the African American women differed in the type used (e.g., Ow-
w-w-w-w-w, nah-h-h, girl-l-l-l, girl please, girl stop, girlfriend, and others).
At present, AAWL is still largely misunderstood and misrepresented in
White mainstream society. An example of the extent of the myopic view of
AAWL can be seen in some analyses of the 1991 Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas
Senate Hearings. For example, Mendoza-Denton (1995) writes that the linguis-
tic strategies available to Clarence Thomas — testifying, sermonizing, signifying
— were “utterly unavailable to Hill’’ (64). She further states: “. . . if acting like
a Black woman and capitalizing on Black speech style is seen as masculine and
verbally (and implicitly sexually) aggressive, then the only recourse is to speak
like a white woman’’ (Mendoza-Denton 1995: 62). This assessment bemoans
“monolithic womanism’’ (Troutman-Robinson 1995) in our society and the
current state of research in AAWL.
Given the dominant paradigm in research in women’s language in which
White women are privileged and Black women are silenced, one might assume
there is a place for African American women in research on AAE. However,
there is little research in AAE that corrects or redresses the absence of the dis-
course of African American women since research in AAE privileges African
American men. Consequently, Black speech style is not viewed as available to
or indicative of African American women. Furthermore, perceptions of African
American speech are synonymous with African American men (just as it is seen
as synonymous with White women’s language in the literature on women’s
language) and leaves little or no room for actual voices of African American
women. Until such time as scholars research AAWL and learn to describe it and
portray it accurately, the following assertions will continue to surface:

Black speech is male speech;

Black speech is verbally aggressive;
Black speech is, implicitly, sexually aggressive speech;
Black speech allows Black women to speak only like men, in verbally and sexu-
ally aggressive ways.
 African American women: Talking that talk 

Black women have only one linguistic choice (to avoid being verbally and sexu-
ally aggressive)
Women’s speech is White women’s speech, therefore Black women’s speech is
White women’s speech

Taking the premise that AAWL is different from White women’s language
and African American men’s language in aspects not sufficiently explored,
I focus on African American women’s rich linguistic capabilities. In order to
represent this speech community with greater accuracy and depth, and espe-
cially to aid in accurate social constructions of AAWL, I first report on several
features of AAWL as presented in the research literature by and on African
American women. Second, I elaborate on one characteristic of AAWL as used
by Anita Hill in my analysis of her interaction with Arlen Specter, the lead
Republican questioner during the Hill-Thomas Hearings. Finally, in my analy-
sis of scenes from The Women of Brewster Place and Jungle Fever, I examine a
feature of AAWL that is referred to within the African American community
as “talking that talk’’.

. Characteristics of African American women’s language: What do the

sistahs have to say?

In this section, I highlight the work on AAWL as identified by my sistahs in the

struggle to represent a “refuse-to-be-silenced’’ speech community. African Amer-
ican women researchers have identified features of AAWL encountered in their
work and experiences with African American women. Some of these features
include reported speech, cooperative or collaborative speech, and “little’’ usage
(Etter-Lewis 1993, 1991); reading dialect, which is one form of signifying (Mor-
gan 1996); culturally-toned diminutives (Troutman 1996); performance (Foster
1995); assertiveness (Houston Stanback 1985; Troutman 1996); and “smart talk’’
(Houston Stanback 1985). I will elaborate on each of those features below.

. Reported speech

Etter-Lewis in My Soul Is My Own (1993) records and analyzes oral narratives

of nine professional African American women between the ages of 60 to 95. She
uses lengthy interviews as a means of revealing the women’s experiences
through the power of their own words. Racist and sexist experiences evolve
 Denise Troutman

from the content of the women’s narratives. As well, Etter-Lewis (1993) notes
several linguistic features of the narratives, such as the use of reported speech,
especially the words of fathers or authority figures, with a shift from past tense
to present tense: “My father said, ‘Now you’re ready to go to school’’’ (83).
Etter-Lewis explains this occurrence of reported speech as a result of highly
regarded mentor relationships established between the women narrators and
their fathers. Also, reported speech of men, according to Etter-Lewis (1993),
occurred as a result of women being socialized to “talk like a lady’’ (84) and “to
listen to men’’ (84), thus giving deference to men’s words.

. Cooperative, collaborative speech

Etter-Lewis (1993) found that both the interviewees and the interviewer (i.e.,
Etter-Lewis) engaged in cooperative and collaborative speech interchanges
willingly in order to work together. For example, Etter-Lewis (1993) allowed
interviewees to “shape the interaction as they saw fit . . . [introducing] . . .
topics into their stories as they felt necessary’’ (140):
(1) Q: And the grandparents on your fathers side?
A: My grandfather was a coachman for a very wealthy family in the
north. My grandmother did not work. And there is a very inter-
esting story about them too. You want me to relate that?
Q: Yes.
A: Well, the story as my paternal aunt told me . . .
Q: That was a wonderful story.
A: I thought I would like to write about it someday.
Q: Yes, please do. What was her maiden name?
In (1), collaboration occurs when Speaker A asks for permission to share a
story about her grandparents and Speaker Q (Etter-Lewis) gives permission for
the sharing of the story. Etter-Lewis cooperates with the interviewee’s request,
although it is not part of the prepared interviewer questions. The interviewee,
according to Etter-Lewis, cooperates by offering to tell a story since she is aware
of Etter-Lewis’ aim. As a result of Etter-Lewis’ collaborative action, person A
shares a rich story, embellishing Etter-Lewis’ data collection on oral narratives.
Collaborative, cooperative speech continues even after the telling of the
story. One speaker’s comments feed directly into the other’s comments, allow-
ing the speakers to work together. Etter-Lewis responds to the story by evaluat-
ing it as wonderful. Speaker A accepts this evaluative comment, feeding off of
it by stating that she would like to record the story in writing. Lastly, Etter-
 African American women: Talking that talk 

Lewis feeds into Speaker A’s comment by encouraging her to put the story in
writing. Thus, the conversational pattern follows an idealized categorization of
conversational turn-taking (Sacks/Schegloff/Jefferson 1974) where the pattern
ABAB occurs (i.e., Speaker A and Speaker B take “rightful’’ turns at speaking).
This pattern of speaking shows that the speakers are working together
cooperatively.
Thirdly, non-verbal cues induced cooperation. When interviewees used
long pauses or made particular facial expressions, Etter-Lewis encouraged the
women to express their pensiveness, in many instances allowing interviewees
to uncover information that may have gone undisclosed:
(2) A: But I remember my aunt saying to me when I got ready to go to
college. She persuaded me to go into teaching . . . and so I believed
her and I did it and she was right you know, cause that was the size
of what you [a Black woman] could do in those days.
Q: You’re thinking of something.
A: I got tickled as I thought about Mary McCleod Bethune, you may
know this story . . . (142).
Again, Etter-Lewis works with interviewees during pensive moments, which
benefits her data collection. In this instance, after the sharing of the Mary
McCleod Bethune story, the interviewee was able to discuss “connections be-
tween the various elements of her past’’ (Etter-Lewis 1993: 142), an important
element in Etter-Lewis’ analysis of oral narratives and the women’s lives.
Lastly, in addition to other features denoting cooperation, Etter-Lewis
(1993: 144) notes that group membership aided cooperative narrator-inter-
viewer interactions.
Many of the women acknowledged that they were interacting with a member of
their own social group by marking their language overtly: ‘. . . as a black woman,
I think that you might have . . .’ Although there is no way to account for covert
cues of such rapport, most of the women felt very comfortable talking to someone
who shared their same background and experiences.

. “Little’’ usage

The African American women interviewed by Etter-Lewis used the word little
to mean the opposite of its denotative meaning. Instead of meanings associated
with diminution (smallness, brevity), “little’’ actually meant ‘very important’ or
‘enormous’. The women used the term to downplay very important roles
 Denise Troutman

or functions that they served or as understatement for important events in

their lives:

And that little case was written up in the newspapers and I got a little publicity and
I was really very happy over that one . . . It may have been the early part of ‘34. Yes,
I liked that case. I’ve kept a little scrapbook and that’s one of my favorites (200).

The interviewee in this instance received a big boost in her career as a result of
this “little’’ case. Etter-Lewis notes the regularity of this usage with all the “nar-
rators produc[ing] at least one instance . . . In general, it was the most fre-
quently occurring adjective in all of the narratives’’ (200).

. Reading dialect

Borrowing one portion of her phrase from the broader African American
speech community, Morgan (1996) describes another feature of Black women’s
talk called reading dialect. To read someone means to denigrate them verbally
because of some inappropriate action or words or, according to Smitherman
(1994: 192), “to tell someone off in no uncertain terms and in a verbally elabo-
rate manner’’. According to Morgan (1996), reading dialect is a means of con-
trasting two language varieties, specifically AAE and General American English
(GAE), through the use of words, sentences, or discourse structures in order to
signify on that person. Since AAE and GAE have words, grammar rules, sen-
tences, and discourse features that are similar, speakers select one dialect or the
other due to a distinct feature that it possesses in order to communicate an
unambiguous point and, most importantly, to read a conversational partner.
For example, Speaker B, in a particular situation where Speaker A has ex-
tended a greeting using GAE, has a number of choices to select from in re-
sponse to the greeting. Two possible choices are: “How are you doing’’ (GAE)
or “Whazzup’’ (AAE). In order to convey a point (perhaps of dissatisfaction or
power), Speaker B, in this exchange, consciously selects the second choice,
greeting Speaker A with “Whazzup’’. In this instance, Speaker B “reads dialect’’.
Among African American women, a common way of reading dialect is through use
of the expression, “Miss Thang’’. During a conversation, one speaker may want to
“read’’ another person due to the latter’s inappropriate behavior. In order to com-
municate dissatisfaction, then, the first person may refer to the targeted receiver
as “Miss Thang’’: “We were doing alright until Miss Thang decided she didn’t want
to go along with the program’’. In this instance, the first person “reads dialect’’
using AAE, communicating a negative point about the targeted receiver. The ex-
 African American women: Talking that talk 

pression “Miss Thang’’ within African American women’s speech community is

a direct put down of a targeted receiver. The broader African American speech
community, as well as the African American women’s speech community, inter-
prets thang negatively since a thing is an object, lacking an identity and other hu-
man qualities (Smitherman in an interview with Troutman in 1998).

. Culturally-toned diminutives

A major conversational feature resonant in the African American women’s

speech community is one that I refer to as culturally-toned diminutives
(Troutman 1996), such as girl. A diminutive may refer to suffixes in English
(e.g., -let, -ling, -ette), words used with suffixes (e.g., piglet, dinette), or words
which express familiarity (e.g., Gracie, Tommy). Within the African American
women’s speech community, culturally-toned diminutives express solidarity.
Besides girl, other diminutives are used within the African American women’s
speech community, including sistah, sistah friend, honey, honey child, child,
baby, baby girl, precious, muh’dear.
For generations, African American women have used culturally-toned
diminutives. The diminutive girl, for example, is a highly visible and popular
word used by many African American females to show solidarity in all spheres
of their existence, public and private, and in all age groups. If they view them-
selves as peers, one African American female can and will call another African
American female girl. Thus, an African American five-year-old girl may say to
her eight year old sister, “Girl, you beda stop dat’’ or “Girl, you crazy’’. These
same sentences can be used by older African American females of any age. The
females involved do not have to be blood relatives in order for this diminutive
to be used appropriately, although they may be. The females could be cousins,
neighbors, classmates, playmates, co-church members, or colleagues.
European American feminists, historically, have rejected the referent girl as
a result of inequitable and demeaning treatment within the patriarchically
dominant U. S. social system. Thus, European American feminists consciously
avoid referring to other women as girl. The African American women’s speech
community permits and encourages the use of girl unobtrusively; this usage, in
fact, is devoid of belittling or degrading denotations or connotations. African
American women obviously do not see themselves diminished in any form
through the use of this term, especially since it continues to be passed on to
succeeding generations of women. Within my grandmother’s generation, my
mother’s generation, and my own generation, girl usage is prominent. And
 Denise Troutman

now, the baton has been passed on to my daughter. Clearly, different lexicons
exist for the two speech communities. For the speech community of African
American women, a highly positive, unifying denotation and connotation are
part of the lexicon. Due to cultural, communicative, and experiential differ-
ences, the lexicon diverges for African and European American women’s speech
communities with girl usage.

. Performance

Foster (1995: 333) defines performance as “a special kind of communicative

event in which there is a particular relationship among stylized material, per-
former, and audience’’. Based on her collected data in a community-college
classroom, Foster essentially found instances of teacher and student interactions
that actively communicated the teaching point. Performances, in Foster’s analy-
sis, served as a different instructional vehicle. Instead of lecturing to convey
salient points, the African American female teacher under study “performed’’
the teaching point, with students assisting in the construction of the perfor-
mance as in (3) from Foster. In (3), the teacher (T) of the course in which
Foster collected data wanted to make sure that her students (S) understood,
realistically, what a budget is. Performance occurred as follows (335):

(3) T: You have a master plan to beat this economic system?

S: No, not yet. (laughs)
T: Well, that’s what a budget is.
S: I was referring to budgeting money to for payin’ the bills, runnin’
my my house . . .
T: Unhuh, that’s a budget . . . Somebody else who wanna share their
ideas about budget? I want to make sure everybody understands
what a budget is before we go on. Yes, Miss Goins . . .

Both the teacher and the students construct a performance of the teach-
ing point in the example. Instead of giving a “liturgical’’ definition of the
word “budget,’’ the instructor opts for a more concrete method of defining
budget; thus, she engages her students in a co-constructed performance of
the word. They perform (or enact) the meaning of budget. According to
Foster (1995: 334), “a teacher was most likely to ‘break into performance’
when attempting to clarify a concept that students had encountered in a text
or a lecture’’. Performing, essentially, enabled the instructor to make concepts
concrete.
 African American women: Talking that talk 

. Assertiveness

Houston Stanback (1985, 1982) claims that African American women commu-
nicate in an assertive, outspoken way, just as African American men, due to
African American women’s work in public spheres. African American women,
however, must curtail their outspokenness as a result of community standards,
which only allow assertiveness to a certain point for women.

.. Latching
In an analysis of the discourse style of Anita Hill during the Hill-Thomas Sen-
ate Judiciary Hearing October 1991, I (Troutman-Robinson 1995) found that
Hill used an assertive style when under fire from Senator Arlen Specter. Out of
a total of four conversational interchanges, with each interchange consisting of
at least 30 minutes of questions from the Democratic and Republican principal
questioners (and up to 5 minutes of questions from other Senators), I focused
on the first two conversational interchanges. The analysis showed that Hill (H)
interrupted Specter (Sp) more often than the reverse (exercising more control
during interchanges), used syllogistic reasoning more skillfully than Specter
(thus, winning more verbal bouts), and used latching more (i.e., a turn-taking
mechanism which occurs at the end of a conversational partner’s speaking turn,
avoiding an interruption or overlapping of a conversational partner’s speech).
Latching in the Hill-Specter analysis conveyed readiness on Hill’s part of
“setting the record straight’’. The two examples below demonstrate Hill’s asser-
tive style: (4) shows latching while (5) shows Hill’s skill in quick reasoning
(capping):

(4) Sp: His words are that you said quote the most laudatory comments
unquote.
H: I have no response to that because I don’t know
exactly what he is saying.

(5) Sp: Well (.) I’ll repeat the question again. Was there any substance in
Ms. Berry’s flat statement that (.) quote (.) Ms. Hill was disap-
pointed and frustrated that Mr. Thomas did not show any sexual
interest in her?
H: No (.) there is not. There is no substance to that. He did show
interest and I’ve explained to you how he did show that interest.
(.) Now (.) she was not aware of that. If you’re asking me (.)
Could she have made that statement. (.) She could have made the
 Denise Troutman

statement if she wasn’t aware of it. (.) But she wasn’t aware of
everything that happened.

In (4), Hill does not hesitate, pause, or back-channel in taking her speaking
turn nor does she interrupt Specter. She responds without missing a beat in the
ABAB conversational pattern, suggesting attentive, alert, perspicuous thinking.
Her latch exudes assertiveness; she takes her turn readily (essentially, she asserts
her turn). Specter’s statement does not surprise, stump, or throw Hill off guard.
She demonstrates assertiveness by her readiness and confidence in beginning
a turn and does so by allowing little or no gap at the end of the current
speaker’s utterance.
Of significance, also, is the fact that Hill’s response is not a prepared one.
The fourteen senators (some of whom profess expertise in examining wit-
nesses) have carefully considered and generated their key questions in advance.
Hill, of course, has anticipated some questions prior to presenting her testi-
mony, yet she cannot anticipate many of them. Thus, the fact that she does not
have to ponder Specter’s accusation, but speaks instantaneously during a
“rightful’’ speaking turn, demonstrates the assertiveness of Hill’s latch.
Furthermore, assertiveness arises in (4) with Hill’s wording. She is not mes-
merized by a claim that she gave Thomas “the most laudatory comments’’. Hill
responds aptly, unobstrusively, unaffectedly, having critically analyzed the poi-
gnancy of Specter’s probe within a matter of seconds. Not only does she re-
spond without hesitation, but she also deflates Specter’s line of examination.
Hill does not attempt to speculate or babble over the comment, which appears
to be taken out of context. She is not stupefied, but deflates the crux of the
argument (“I have no response to that because I don’t know exactly what he is
saying’’).
Conceivably, Hill could have attempted to account for giving “the most
laudatory comments’’ to Thomas. Doing so would have produced at least two
possible outcomes: Hill would have had to ramble mentally and orally to ac-
count for such a statement and its context, thereby presenting a less credible
face, or Hill would have partially discredited and deflated her testimony against
Clarence Thomas by accounting for laudatory comments given to him. Instead,
Hill immediately analyzes Specter’s line of approach and essentially asserts,
“Brick wall. I am not going there because I don’t know what he is talking
about’’. With her response, Specter can no longer pursue the issue of “the most
laudatory comments’’ but must move on to another line of questioning. Touché!
is very appropriate for Hill in this instance. Her wording is assertive in view of
an African American woman’s perspective.
 African American women: Talking that talk 

.. Capping
In (5), Hill uses an assertive tone as one piece of weaponry in the ensuing duel.
At various points, she uses increased emphasis as a verbal weapon. Intellectu-
ally, she caps this conversational interchange. As a result of the context of the
hearings (national television and other media coverage, Senate Judiciary Com-
mittee chambers, a broad array of on-lookers, etc.), Hill uses a formal manner
of speaking. The potency of her response, her capping strategy may become
more obvious if translated. Based on an informal pilot test, I asked other Afri-
can American women scholars to convert Hill’s wording(s) from the context
of the hearings to an informal context using AAWL. Their translations (Tr)
show directly the capping of the exchange:
Tr 1: No, there ain’t no substance to none of that. Didn’t I just ex-
plain to you the filthy things that that man did to show interest
in me? What’s wrong with you? Are you ignorant or something?
Now look; Ms. Berry don’t know everything. What you really
want to ask me is could Ms. Berry have said that. Yes, she cer-
tainly could have said that, but she don’t know everything. Say-
ing that something is true and knowing that something is true
is two different things. Do you get my drift?
Tr 2: NO, she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Oh, he showed
interest. Any fool who don’t know the real deal could have
made that statement. I didn’t put all my business in the street to
Ms. Berry, so she ain’t know everything that happened.
Tr 3: No(.) That’s not true. He was interested in me. I told you that,
already (.) Now (.) She didn’t know that. If you ask me (.)
Could she have said that (.) She could have if she knew about
it. (.) but she ain’t know. (In other words, Ms. Berry might
have known that Thomas didn’t show interest in Anita Hill as
a professional and she probably thought that that meant that
Anita didn’t lift her dress up to get a promotion or to get the
respect she deserved. Berry is probably one of dem brain-
washed sistas that think the only way a sista can get respect is
to do the nasty — which is not really brainwashed but the way
of the old world which sistas like Anita is trying to get rid of
that kinda world.)
Tr 4: There ain’t no basis to that. I told you he come on to me and I
done told you how he come on to me. Now Gurlfriend didnt
know bout him trying to get his groove on with me. So what she
gon say but what she know.
 Denise Troutman

.. Smart talk

Houston Stanback (1982) discusses assertiveness, as manifested in smart talk,
in a positive manner, unlike the outsider perspective given by Abrahams
(1975). According to Houston Stanback (1982), sweet talk reflects one sphere
of African American women’s existence — that of nurturer. It is used with
children, female friends, and relatives to affirm and support (Houston Stanback
1982: 12). Smart talk, on the other hand, is reserved for all other communicants
as a put-down, reflecting a combative style of language (Houston Stanback
1982: 12). Abrahams (1975), however, claims that talking smart is used by Afri-
can American women to defend their respectability. Further, he conveys that
sweet talk and smart talk represent the whole range of African American
women’s language, especially related to creating and negotiating respect. Thus,
he projects the limited view that African American women are so critically
concerned about respectability that talking smart results and is one of only two
linguistic styles accessible to defend and negotiate respect. In fact, African
American women have a larger repertoire of styles available to them and for
varying purposes, as the present paper demonstrates.
Smart talk is one form of assertive language, according to Houston Stan-
back (1982). She aims to re-frame communication research which has glossed
over the unique and individual communicative style of African American
women, a style assumed to be synonymous with European American women
or with African American men. Houston Stanback (1982) identifies three fac-
tors that influence AAWL:
1. the definition of African American womanhood (particularly the African
American community’s traditional definition);
2. relative verbal equity (between African American men and women); and
3. ambivalent interpretations of AAWL (within the African American com-
munity).
Signifying is one form of smart talk. Within the African American speech com-
munity, signifying is a game of verbal wit. Smitherman (1977) defines signifying
as an indirect form of ritualized insult in which “a speaker puts down, talks
about, needles — signifies on — the listener’’ (118). For example, (6) recounts
an incident cited in Mitchell-Kernan (1972: 323) where she (MK) engages in
signifying with a young man in his early twenties (YM) while two other young
men of the same age (TM) are present:
(6) YM: Mama, you sho is fine.
MK: That ain’t no way to talk to your mother.
 African American women: Talking that talk 

TM: (Laughter)
YM: You married?
MK: Um hm.
YM: Is your husband married?
TM: (Laughter)
Within the African American speech community, permissibility rules allow
speech community members who know the rules of the game to signify, regard-
less of gender. Furthermore, this game of verbal wit is marked positively by
speech community members.
The research literature in this section indicates that AAWL encompasses a
repertoire of features stemming from the broader African American speech
community (signifying, “reading’’ someone) as well as the narrower African
American women’s speech community (diminutives, performance, assertive-
ness, “smart talk’’, and “sweet talk’’). Positive evaluations are given to speakers
who can use these features adeptly, perhaps due to the worldview of many Afri-
can Americans that consummate verbal skills reflect mental acuity.

. African American women “talking that talk’’!

“Talking that talk’’ appears to be an overarching rubric under which smart talk
and other verbal strategies fit and which is available to the African American
speech community at-large, females and males, as exemplified in (7).
(7) A: Baby, you a real scholar. I can tell you want to learn. Now if
you’ll just cooperate a li’l bit, I’ll show you what a good teacher
I am. But first we got to get into my area of expertise.
B: I may be wrong but seems to me we already in your area of ex-
pertise.
A: You ain’ so bad yourself, girl. I ain’t heard you stutter yet. You
a li’l fixated on your subject though. I want to help a sweet
thang like you all I can. I figure all that book learning you got
must mean you been neglecting other areas of your education.
C: Talk that talk! (Mitchell-Kernan 1972: 324)

Within the African American speech community, “talking that talk’’ is a

referential phrase meaning that a particular speaker knows how to use language
extremely well. Such a speaker knows how to cap or win conversational ex-
changes through the use of signifying (Smitherman 1977; Mitchell-Kernan
 Denise Troutman

1972); loud talking, marking (Mitchell-Kernan 1972); rhyming, joking, reading

dialect (Morgan 1996); and a variety of other verbal strategies ranging from the
prosodic to the discursive. “Talking that talk’’ requires quick-wittedness,
ingenuity, spontaneity, and sound thinking ability (a good mind). When en-
gaged in word or speech games, which are a reflection of mental acuity, a
speaker who can “talk that talk’’ plays superbly, easily constructing spontane-
ous, apt, humorous, and wise responses. “Talking that talk’’ serves as a vehicle
whereby African Americans can play with language, display their mental adept-
ness, defeat a verbal opponent, and have fun simultaneously.
Major (1994: 466) defines “talking that talk’’ as “commendation for
having great and ‘hip’ verbal skills; for being in style verbally; encouragement
to be one’s self.’’ According to Smitherman (p.c.), “talking that talk’’ refers
to ‘‘tapping into the linguistic culture, the linguistic wellspring of our his-
tory; hitting the registers that we know are Black, lively talk, real talk, color-
ful talk, full of flavor’’. Considering these insider perspectives, then, “talking
that talk’’ appears to be a larger framework under which a number of other
features within AAWL fit, both those features listed above and those yet
unidentified.
When African American women friends gather together, conversations may
focus on serious matters, yet lighter-toned conversations revolve around kid-
ding and joking, which invoke and involve “talking that talk’’. Obviously, all
African American women do not fall into this category, but there is a subset of
African American women who enthrall us in spiritual, social, educational, and
political gatherings with their intellectual prowess, good humor, and adeptness
in “talking that talk’’. I have observed this language usage first-hand through
women, such as my sisters, Cheryl and Dr. G.; my grandmothers, Mama Lloyd
and Mama Willie; my auntie, Aunt Lilla; my friend, Tootsie; and second-hand
through creators of literature and film, such as Maya Angelou (even though she
appears miseducated about her linguistic heritage), Gloria Naylor, Terry
McMillan, and Spike Lee.
My analysis of “talking that talk’’ stems from two primary sources: Gloria
Naylor’s novel The Women of Brewster Place (1982) and Spike Lee’s film Jungle
Fever (1991).
. Talking that talk in The Women of Brewster Place

Oprah Winfrey produced and starred in the television mini-series based upon
Naylor’s The Women of Brewster Place in 1989. Its production added visibility
to the novelist, the novel, the actresses/actors, and issues within the African
 African American women: Talking that talk 

American community, especially African American women’s issues. Although

this data is not based on real conversations, its authenticity establishes its legiti-
macy for analysis. Naylor has created characters whose voices and personalities
are real. Many African Americans can attest to the credibility of Mattie Michael
and Mrs. Eva, among other characters. There are many Mattie Michaels and
Mrs. Evas throughout the African Diaspora. Their language and actions hold
a commonplace in the memories and experiences of the African American
speech community.
Before readers delve deeply into the text, the voices of the African Ameri-
can women become clearly established, first through the main character Mattie
Michael, in (8).
(8) ‘I heard you the first time, Butch Fuller, but I got a name, you know’,
she said, without looking in his direction. ‘Here’s your water’. She
almost threw it at him. ‘I couldn’t even deny a dog a drink on a day
like today, but when you done drunk it, you better be gettin’ on to
wherever you was gettin’ before you stopped’ (Naylor 1982: 8–9).
In (8), from the opening scene of the novel, Naylor constructs Mattie’s
voice through word choice and tone. Mattie does not code her thoughts with
polite indirectness, yet caustically and directly interacts with Butch. Naylor
gives Mattie strong, bold language. Mattie ignores Butch when he first ad-
dresses her, succumbing only after a third bid for attention with the retort, “I
got a name, you know’’ (Naylor 1982: 8). Naylor conveys a principle applied
within the African American community of calling individuals by name, estab-
lished perhaps in response to the residual effects of enslavement where people
were identified as objects, not human beings. For example, “I got a name’’
(Naylor 1982: 8) is a common response to “hey you’’. She boldly lets Butch
know that she heard him calling her “the first time’’ (Naylor 1982: 8), yet there
are certain rules to abide by in order to merit receiving a person’s attention.
Reacting to Butch’s inappropriate attention-getter and in order to mask her
affection for Butch, Mattie “comes on strong’’. She avoids looking at Butch (or
even in his direction) and almost throws the water at him. Her final words in
this speaking turn are abrasive — “I couldn’t even deny a dog a drink on a day
like today, but when you done drunk it, you better be gettin’ on to wherever
you was gettin’ before you stopped’’ (Naylor 1982: 9). Without the contextual
clues from Naylor (or without being privy to contextual rules within the Afri-
can American community), readers would initially believe that Mattie truly
hates Butch due to her strong wording. Orally, Butch is placed on the level of
 Denise Troutman

a dog and is instructed to be “lickety split’’ about moving on. Mattie’s words
are considered sharp: “done drunk’’ and “gettin’ on to wherever you was
gettin’’’ have been given potency within the African American speech commu-
nity. Compounded here, the words build extra weight. There is urgency and
completion conveyed in these words. The perfective tense of AAE occurs in the
structure “done drunk’’, which emphasizes the completion of an action
through the use of done. Essentially, Mattie tells Butch, “When you have fin-
ished, keep on trucking’’. Mattie imbues urgency in her words, “gettin’ on to
wherever you was gettin’ (Naylor 1982: 9). In other words, do not sit down; do
not engage in small talk; do not pause, but go forward.
The repetition of “gettin’’’ also adds to the force of Mattie’s words (“gettin’
on to wherever you was gettin’’’). Repetition holds positive power within the
African American community. It provides greater emphasis and intensifies the
meaning of particular points. Sermons from African American pastors convey
the positive value of repetition as well as the words and works of African Amer-
ican orators, poets and writers, scholars, and philosophers due to its common
occurrence in texts. For example, Malcolm X uses alliteration in the following,
repeating [p] for emphasis, “Pimps, prostitutes, Ph.D.s — you all still in slav-
ery’’. Martin Luther King, Jr. empowered many individuals through the repeti-
tion of the phrase, “I have a dream, today’’, in his most famous speech of all.
As one result of the repetitive force of these words, African Americans and
others outside the speech community began to place greater stock in dreams.
Butch is not offended by Mattie’s caustic tone. In an underlying conversa-
tional dynamic, Mattie’s abrasiveness is permissible since she and Butch both
realize their self-worth and deep affection for one another. They also realize
that Mattie has the “right’’ to be abrasive because Butch Fuller has established
himself within certain parts of the community as an untrustworthy “lady
killer’’. Other members of the community, including Mattie and Butch himself,
recognize Butch as innovative, intelligent, witty, and strong, yet Mattie has to
abide by the dictates of her father who does not want Butch on his property.
Thus, Mattie respectfully upholds her father’s attitude of dislike and distrust
through her language, although she really cares for Butch.
In response to Butch’s question, “You know how to eat sugar cane?’’
(Naylor 1982: 18), Mattie replies in (9):

(9) You a crazy nigger, Butch Fuller. First you ask me ‘bout my name and
then come up with some out-the-way question like that. I been eating
sugar cane all my life, fool! (Naylor 1982: 18).
 African American women: Talking that talk 

In (9), Mattie speaks forthrightly and directly, letting Butch know the ludicrous-
ness of his question by addressing him boldly as “nigger’’ and “fool’’. Mattie is
not obligated to politeness (direct or indirect) as one result of the community
standards and her father’s rules regarding Butch. A person that speaks ridicu-
lously or asks a simple question may legitimately be called a fool, particularly as
used by older African Americans (thus, this usage may show age grading).
Permissibility rules within the African American speech community oper-
ate with use of the word “nigger’’ also. As Naylor (1998) has described in
“‘Nigger’: The meaning of a word’’, two different contexts (at least) have been
established for “nigger’’ for African Americans. A negative meaning has been
applied by the broader European American community to African Americans
generally. However, African Americans have exerted power in language usage
by reappropriating and resemanticizing the term. In this sense, “nigger’’ may
be used positively among African Americans, devoid of its capitalistic and racist
origins within the U.S.
One point of interest in the dialogue in (10) between Mattie and Butch is
the metalinguistic message that Naylor (1982: 9) allows to be conveyed through
the voice of Butch:
(10) Lord, you Michael women got the sharpest tongues in the county, but
I guess a man could die in a lot worst ways than being cut to death by
such a beautiful mouth.
Naylor demonstrates some familiarity here with AAWL and has consciously
injected it into her work, giving added visiblity to the notion that African
American women use language in a particular way. Mattie’s language is cutting.
Naylor has imbued this character with a linguistic style that is not fanciful, but
which has social reality and which Naylor has witnessed, undoubtedly, first-
hand. Naylor (1998) writes not only about language, but also about her family
in Harlem: maternal grandparents who owned the apartment building in which
they lived; aunts, uncles, friends, tenants who “let down their hair’’ (333) in the
grandparents’ ground floor apartment; children, simultaneous conversations,
and games of checkers, especially a grandmother who “cheated shamelessly’’
(333). With such a multiplicitous, dynamic environment, Naylor knows of that
which she writes.
In Butch’s line above, Naylor writes specifically about the Michael women,
yet other African American female characters in the novel show the same or
greater sharpness of the tongue — so much so that their tongues become
swords. Further, Naylor views this way of speaking positively since Butch
 Denise Troutman

replies, “I guess a man could die in a lot worst ways than being cut to death by
such a beautiful mouth’’ (Naylor 1982: 9). Thus, the tongue is sharp, yet beau-
tiful, for African American women who speak in this manner.
The language displayed here is one that many African American women
endorse proudly, as evidenced by Naylor’s use of it and by the longevity this
linguistic system has sustained. Within the African American community, there
appears to be resistance to eliminating Africanized linguistic elements, as seen
in AAWL.

. Talking that talk in Jungle Fever

In my study of the social construction of AAWL and the analysis of films, I

have observed aspects of “talking that talk’’ and examined it, specifically in one
segment of Spike Lee’s film Jungle Fever. I present one example of the language,
along with its context, then a discussion of “talking that talk’’.
The conversational exchange in (11) from Jungle Fever takes place in a
“soul food’’ restaurant. The lead character, Flipper (Wesley Snipes), has had an
affair with an Italian American woman, Angie (Annabella Sciorra), his tempo-
rary secretary at an advertising firm. Flipper pursues the relationship with
Angie, taking her out to dinner. In this scene, the restaurant is filled with Afri-
can American customers and serviced by African American employees. The
waitress (W), played by Queen Latifah, for Flipper (F) and Angie’s (A) table has
not waited on the couple, although thirty minutes have passed and customers
around them have received service. Flipper, finally, hails the approaching wait-
ress (see the Appendix for transcription notations):
(11) F: ((Low volume)) Dammit (.) ((Increased volume)) Excuse me
Miss (.) Miss (.) may we order please.
W: ((Walks over to table calmly; avoids eye contact; uses a low,
calm tone of voice)) Yes (.) may I take your order.
5 F: Is this your station?
W: Yes ((establishes eye contact with Flipper)) this is my station (.)
unfortunately ((looks down to write on ticketing pad; bats
eyes))
F: Look (.) you can take my order (.) matter of fact ((pointing
10 finger)) you could’ve taken my order thirty minutes ago when
I sat my Black ass in this chair.
+
W: ((Looks at Angie)) Can I take your order?
A: ((Surprised and speechless; stares back at waitress))
 African American women: Talking that talk 

F: ((Jumps in)) Excuse me (1.0) uhm do you have a problem?

15 W: ((Establishes direct eye contact with Flipper)) Yes (.) I do have
a problem to be honest with you (1.0) Fake (.) tired brothers
like you coming in heah. Dass so typical. I cain’t even believe
you brought huh stringy hair ass up heah to eat.
F: Ahh ahh let me tell you something (.) first of all Miss Al
20 Sharpton (.) you don’t have (.)
+
W: Why don’t you pa:rade (0.1)
F: It’s not your business (0.1) who I bring in
here %
W: Why don’t you parade (0.1) yo White friend
25 somewhere else okay?]
F: Iss not yo business (.) you are a waitress (.) your job is to wait.
W: (0.3) ((Resumes soft, calm tone; goes into a routine recitation.
Looks up, rolls eyes, looks down at pad)) Today’s specials are
the Maryland crab cakes (.) Creole shrimp (.) gumbo and
30 blackened catfish (.) ((Speaks to Flipper, directly)) I suggest
you have the blackened catfish.
F: Well I suggest you find the manager.
W: Oh you want my manager.
F: I want your manager.
35 W: Oh iss like dat right
F: ((Mumbles)) I want the [manager]
W: All right fine fine [fine (.) you git my] — I’ll git my manager!
((Walks away from table to get manager))
F: ((Loudly)) You’re fired!
40 W: ((Loudly)) You’re tired!
The discussion here focuses primarily on the language used by the African
American waitress. In the backdrop of the scene, the waitress, played by Queen
Latifah, has obviously summed up the situation with Flipper and Angie. As a
result, she makes a conscious decision not to give them service. Spike Lee cap-
tures the avoidance behavior of the waitress before any conversational exchange
occurs. The waitress is shown graciously and contentedly giving information to
and taking orders from two elderly women at the table immediately adjacent to
Flipper and Angie’s table. At this point, Angie has turned around in her chair,
looking at the waitress expectantly. After collecting the menus from the two
women, however, the waitress just walks on by, continuing her denial of service.
Angie conveys exasperation non-verbally as the waitress walks away from their
seated area to take care of other food orders, yet Angie does not voice her exas-
 Denise Troutman

peration, partially because of the territory that she is in; she displays obligatory
politeness. Flipper is aware that the waitress passes by, yet he is not affected by
her lack of service at this point. He hunches his shoulders upward, communi-
cating non-verbally and calmly to Angie, “Oh well’’ or “I don’t know what the
deal is with the waitress’’. He is caught up in his predicament and continues
with small talk. Shortly thereafter, however, the waitress passes their area and
he gets her attention (“Excuse me Miss (.) may we order please.’’)
In this antagonistic interaction in (11), the waitress demonstrates adeptness
in “talking that talk’’, as gauged by African American standards. Quick-witted-
ness, humor, spontaneous and apt retorts (optionally accompanied by non-ver-
bal movements) are marks of superior verbal acuity within the African American
speech community. The waitress measures up to these standards superbly. Addi-
tionally, she uses lively, bold, direct talk (although in two instances she tempo-
rarily compels herself to perform obligatory duties in a modest, polite, acquies-
cent manner). The waitress uses smart talk, “reads’’ Flipper, reads dialect, and
caps the conversational interchange — all elements of “talking that talk’’.
Once the waitress is called upon in her official capacity, she carries out her
duties perfunctorily. She performs, hiding her true feelings and speaking in a
very calm and controlled tone of voice, initially: “Yes (.) may I take your or-
der’’. The waitress, in fact, gives the impression that she is ready to “take care
of business’’. She is compelled to perform because this IS her station, this IS her
job, and she does have an obligation to serve customers in her area. Although
she does not like the idea of a “brothah’’ bringing a European American
woman into African American territory, the waitress performs as though no
problem exists (lines 3–4) in order to fulfill her obligations. Her tone suggests
humility, yet that suggestion is short-lived. Flipper’s next question, “Is this your
station?’’ (line 5), brings out an element of “smart talk’’ (lines 6–7).
It is only at this time that the waitress establishes eye contact with Flipper.
In this respect, she uses an avoidance strategy, which may translate into word-
ing to the effect of “See no evil; speak no evil’’. Alternatively, the waitress may
avoid direct eye contact to convey displeasure to the couple (“I do not have to
look at things that I do not like’’.). An interplay of these dynamics seems opera-
tive here. She only establishes direct eye contact to show that she is prepared
to defend “her station’’ or because she is asked a direct question.
Once the waitress establishes eye contact and answers Flipper’s question,
she moves boldly onward, remarking that it is unfortunate that her station is
the one where the interracial couple is seated. The “batting’’ of her eyes inten-
sifies the communication of displeasure and highlights her demeanor of
 African American women: Talking that talk 

frankness or preference for frankness. This non-verbal communicative behavior

conveys a complexity of meanings within the African American speech
community which depend on the context. Here, the waitress intensifies her
displeasure through a non-verbal gesture and establishes the factuality of
that displeasure. Essentially, the batting of her eyes communicates, “Now there,
it’s a fact; I’ve said it and you can deal with it or not’’. The mask is unveiled
and obligatory politeness seeks compliance elsewhere.
The word “unfortunately’’, included as part of the answer, demonstrates an
instance of “smart talk’’. The waitress gives an answer that does not suit her
position (i.e., she is accountable to the customers that she serves and is ex-
pected to watch her behavior, including her linguistic behavior). Within the
African American community, children and youth typically are warned about
using “smart talk’’. Grandmothers, mothers, and aunts (among others) train
the young folk in this mode of discourse: those instances when particular
speech behavior amounts to “smart talk’’, when speech treads too closely to
being “smart talk’’, when young folks should avoid “smart talk’’, even when
“smart talk’’ may be used appropriately. The waitress knows these rules of the
speech community and violates the usage in order to communicate her feelings.
This first instance of smart talk sets off the antagonistic interaction that tran-
spires from this point on. The waitress has now ignited Flipper’s wrath. He is
cognizant of the discourse rules and speech acts within the African American
speech community and he retaliates (lines 9–10). Flipper fights back through
language and kinesics. The pointing of his finger strengthens his words and acts
as an admonishment for inappropriate behavior. Adults typically point their
fingers at children, particularly during teaching/lecturing/chastising moments.
He peers at the waitress through the top of his eyeglasses, another non-verbal,
demeaning strategy as the pointing of his finger. Flipper heightens his response
orally by his tone of voice and the addition of an expletive. The waitress deploys
the strength of his retaliation with an innovative game strategy. She fires back,
not at Flipper, but at Angie (lines 12) — a fair tactic in verbal battle. The wait-
ress’ strategy is effective. She demonstrates that she is one step ahead of Flipper
by using a contrapuntal response that Flipper does not anticipate. The norm
within African American repartee places one speaker in an adversarial position
against another, with the objective of capping (or beating) the opponent’s final
comment. Instead of the standard format, the waitress decides that more than
two can play at this game. She responds by attacking in an area that she has deci-
phered as weak. She turns to Angie, lodging a new offense. All parties present are
aware of the speech act here and its perlocutionary intent. The waitress is not
 Denise Troutman

sincerely interested in Angie’s food order. Her sentence communicates a request

for information directly, yet indirectly conveys a command in question form,
“What do you have to say?’’ (or a bald command, “Put in your two cents’’.) The
waitress’ offensive plan has worked. She wins the antagonistic exchange, mo-
mentarily. (She leads, not follows.)
In the next segment of the interchange in (11), the verbal battle intensifies
between waitress and customer. Flipper asks a question, “Do you have a prob-
lem?’’ (line 14), which opens the door to direct, bold language on the waitress’
part (lines 15–18). Counter to the polite language tendencies described for
“women’s language’’ (Lakoff 1975), the waitress speaks her mind instead of
hiding behind politeness strategies. Honest, direct communication characterizes
her linguistic behavior here, regardless of her status or obligatory duties. Bold-
ness in language and demeanor mark her response. She unhesitatingly calls
Flipper fake, tired, and audacious. According to African American English and
its community standards, the waitress is “in his face’’. Although her comments
are brief (lines 15–18), the waitress shares her beliefs, “reading’’ Flipper adeptly.
Flipper is a phony African American male, not a real one, because he has taken
a European American woman on a date to an African American establishment.
Not only is he fake, but he is also tired. In his slang dictionary, Major (1994)
defines tired as ‘stupid, boring, lame’ (477).
The waitress not only reads Flipper, but reads him metalinguistically as well.
She code-switches from GAE to AAE. She only stops at Flipper and Angie’s table
because she is called upon. This action pulls her into an obligatory performance
of her duties, which she performs (although perfunctorily) using GAE. When
asked if she has a problem, the waitress “reads’’ Flipper his “rights’’, according
to her law and language (lines 15–18). Here, the waitress “reads dialect’’ by sig-
nifying on Flipper and by using phonological and lexical AAE features. Indi-
rectly, she puts Flipper down; she does not say directly, “You are fake and tired’’.
Instead, she signifies by associating him with other brothers that are fake and
tired. “Reading dialect’’ occurs phonologically with that pronounced as “dass’’
(line 16), her pronounced as “huh’’ (line 17), and here pronounced as “heah’’
(line 17). Also, the waitress uses lexical items specific to the African American
speech community: fake (line 15), tired (line 15), and brothers (line 15).
While “reading’’ Flipper, the waitress brings Angie into the picture, insult-
ing her: “I cain’t even believe you brought huh stringy hair ass up heah to
eat’’ (lines 17–18). The camera shows all three participants in this shot, with
Angie raking her fingers through her hair upon hearing this comment. At this
point, the battle ensues. It is “on’’! Flipper takes offense and draws upon his
 African American women: Talking that talk 

community knowledge and weaponry. He signifies on the waitress: “ahh ahh

let me tell you something (.) first of all Miss Al Sharpton’’ (lines 19–20). The
context of the movie makes it clear that Flipper does not know the waitress,
nor her name. He calls her “Miss Al Sharpton’’ as an indirect slur. Within
some communities, Al Sharpton has been established as uncreditable and
empty-mouthed. Through indirection, Flipper labels the waitress similarly. He
does not directly call her pumped up or full of hot air, yet, by associating her
with Al Sharpton, he retaliates in the game of verbal warfare. His strategy is
effective but short-lived as the waitress disallows Flipper a full speaking turn,
overlapping his talk with her input (lines 21, 23, 25). In this interchange, the
waitress deploys the strength of the signification and the lecturing mode of
Flipper by speaking simultaneously. She denies him full control of the floor
and has the last word in the simultaneous speech segment.
After a brief (0.1 second) pause, Flipper continues lecturing the waitress,
who allows his speaking turn: “Iss not yo business (.) you are a waitress (.) your
job is to wait’’ (line 26). The waitress appears to “settle down’’ and listen to the
customer’s comments. She temporarily resumes her duties of waitressing,
aloofly: “((Resumes soft, calm tone; goes into a routine recitation. Looks up,
rolls eyes, looks down at pad)) Today’s specials are the Maryland crab cakes (.)
Creole shrimp (.) gumbo and blackened catfish’’ (lines 27–31). Performance
occurs here: the waitress puts on an act, performing as a gentle, acquiescent
server, indicated by her tone, volume, and other metalinguistic behavior. She
assumes a calm tone, routinely reciting the day’s specials, even though she must
force herself to do so as indicated by kinesics. She puts on an act that things are
okay and business can proceed. The waitress does not bite her tongue for long,
though. Before this speaking turn is over, “smart talk’’ occurs a second time:
“I suggest you have the blackened catfish’’ (lines 30–31).
Fear of repercussions does not appear to stop the waitress from responding
“smartly’’. Although in both instances of “smart talk’’ she initially holds her
peace, shortly thereafter she asserts her position directly and boldly, regardless
of jeopardizing her job (lines 27–31). At the point of the second use of “smart
talk’’, the waitress appears not to be concerned about fulfilling her tasks. She has
conveyed her disapproval of Flipper’s actions prior to this exchange and does
not “cease and desist’’. She, again, boldly communicates her feelings: “I suggest
you have the blackened catfish’’ (lines 30–31). The emphasis on the word
“blackened’’ seems to suggest that Flipper is only superficially African Ameri-
can. Perhaps eating the “blackened’’ catfish will help him become a “real
brothah’’.
 Denise Troutman

Even though (11) occurred in a film produced, directed, and written by a

male, the language represented in it for African American women has social
reality, especially as legitimated by the research on AAWL. The waitress per-
forms, reads dialect, and uses “smart talk’’, as described by African American
women researchers. She “rap[s] in a powerful, convincing manner’’ (Smither-
man 1994: 221), “talking that talk’’.

. Conclusion

The literature on AAWL and the data analyzed here show that verbal strategies
exist within the African American women’s speech community that establish
a distinct way of talking for African American women that is neither wholly like
White women’s language or African American men’s language. There are other
linguistic options available for African American women than may have been
previously acknowledged in the literature. African American women may
choose to signify, read dialect, perform, and/or speak assertively without feeling
stereotypically masculine or aggressive, especially based upon an in-group per-
spective and construction.
Further, the literature and data suggest that some gendered parity exists
in use of the strategies among speech community members and in the avail-
ability of the linguistic strategies to speech community members. Many Afri-
can American women are highly skilled in verbal dueling as the waitress dem-
onstrates in (11) and as Naylor has constructed for Mattie Michael (8 and 9)
in The Women of Brewster Place. Mattie exerts linguistic power and control
without challenge from Butch. Anita Hill displays skill in assertive linguistic
behavior (4 and 5). Even though she codeswitches (as one would expect), she
nonetheless maintains a linguistic style representative of AAWL. Smitherman
(p.c.) reports on her own personal adeptness in “playing the dozens’’ and
other verbal games as learned from a cousin. Smitherman was also known for
her dexterity in “talking that talk’’ (Smitherman p.c.). These women (fictional
and non-fictional) appear not to be afraid of cultural stereotypes of their
speech, yet view their linguistic options (within AAWL) pridefully and posi-
tively. Within both the African American speech community and African
American women’s speech community, the features discussed in this paper
are socially constructed as valuable and desirable. Speech community mem-
bers, in general, admire speakers, both male and female, who can “talk
that talk’’.
 African American women: Talking that talk 

Notes
. I dedicate this paper to Dr. Geneva Smitherman, a true revolutionary, a “woman war-
rior’’, who has given of her research, teaching, and lectures to the true, accurate, and
positive depiction of language used by American Africans in the U.S. Dr. Smitherman
served as one primary source for the interviews and tape-recordings during my collection
of data. She very obviously is a speaker, writer, and defender of African American
English. Dr. G, the student-bestowed pseudonym for my colleague, has a longstanding
tradition of mentoring and helping others, especially her people. The research included
here serves, in part, as a tribute to her mentoring, assistance, and service given to me and
the many thousands gone — spreading their wings, yet still held accountable to the
lessons she has modeled.
. As would be expected from the research of Turner (1949) and Herskovits (1958), a cultural
continuum is evidenced with this diminutive. In discussions with women from Barbados,
I have observed the same use of girl as described here for African women in the U.S.
. Note that Foster does not consciously focus on this feature as one characteristic of
AAWL. Such a designation is mine, based upon my reading of Foster (1995) as discussed
here.

Appendix Transcription notations

(1) Numbers in parentheses preceding the transcribed text indicate examples.

-- Dashes indicate that speech was interrupted.
(1.2) Numbers in parentheses within the transcribed text indicate silences in seconds
and tenths of seconds.
(.) A period enclosed in parentheses marks silences that were too short to time pre-
cisely.
Z A large z-shaped symbol shows that latching occurs; little or no gap occurs be-
tween the end of current speaker’s turn and the beginning of next speaker’s turn.
[ A left bracket indicates overlapped speech; next speaker begins a turn prior to the
end of current speaker’s turn.
= An equal sign shows that there was no silence or pause discernible within one
speaker’s utterances.
. A period indicates falling intonation, not grammar.
? A question mark indicates rising intonation, not grammar.
bold Boldfaced letters show emphasis, conveyed either by increased volume or pitch
changes.
< The less-than symbol indicates a decrease in volume.
::: Colons mark the lengthening of the sound they follow.
(( )) Double parentheses relay transcriber comments, not transcribed text. ((???)), for
example, indicates undecipherable language for the transcriber.
→ Marks a key example of the feature under discussion.
 Denise Troutman

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 Chapter 9

Directness in the use of

African American English

Arthur K. Spears
City University of New York

. Introduction

. . . many studies show that the punishment meted out to Blacks when they violate
social and cultural norms is greater than that accorded to Whites for the same
offense. This differential treatment is clearly a matter of racial discrimination, and
it should be emphasized that the same difference in treatment occurs at all social
levels, even when what is involved is no more than a breach of decorum. Yet there
are further grounds for Blacks to feel indignant on this score, since Whites often
censure them for violating White norms even when Blacks are behaving in ways
appropriate to Black norms. That no consideration should be granted Blacks when
they behave in accordance with their cultural norms, when this violates White
norms, reinforces a pattern of Black cultural subordination [emphasis added]
(Kochman 1981: 159).

This article deals with controversial speech that sometimes includes material
that some speakers consider indecorous and/or obscene. Those not wishing to
be exposed to such language should not read further.
Certain types of African American speech are currently being criticized and,
to some extent, censured. To give some idea of the speech I am talking about, I
have only to mention rap records, particularly of the gangsta type; playing the
dozens; trash talking on basketball courts; some kinds of urban street speech,
some of which includes obscenity; and some of the speeches of Ministers
Farakhan and Khalid Muhammad of the Nation of Islam. Some of the speech
included within the notion of directness would never be considered obscene, but
it might well be considered excessively assertive, aggressive, or caustic — depend-
ing on who is judging it. I am not implying that these kinds of direct speech have
anything in common beyond their being criticized and censured. Much of the
 Arthur K. Spears

language being criticized is not understood by many of those doing the criticiz-
ing. Consequently, my first point is that speech should be understood in its
sociocultural context before decisions are made to criticize or censure (cf. Spears
1998). Keep in mind that I am not arguing that none of the types of speech I refer
to should never be criticized or censured, but that linguistically sound analyses
and assessments should be available before proceeding to do so.
Directness, the subject of this chapter, which is characterized below, is a
highly important aspect of African American verbal culture. It involves speech
events such as cussin’ out (cursing directed to a particular addressee), playing
the dozens (a game of ritual insults), snapping, reading people (theatrically
delivered negative criticism), verbally abusing people (see below), going off on
someone (a sudden, often unexpected burst of negatively critical, vituperative
speech), getting real (a fully candid appraisal of a person, situation, event,
etc.), and trash talk (talk in competitive settings, notably athletic games, that
is boastful and puts down opponents). Given their importance, the kinds of
speech events associated with directness merit theoretical attention.
Although much of the speech covered by the notion of directness is in-
cluded in those facets of African American speech behavior that many African
Americans are ashamed of and/or do not wish to have aired outside of the Afri-
can American community, it nevertheless has to be discussed because it has
already been outted, especially by the increasing, media-driven appropriation
of Black culture throughout U.S. society. Controversial features of African
American verbal culture must be theorized by those with the linguistic exper-
tise to do so in order to counteract the many misbegotten discussions and
analyses that are already in circulation.
This leads to an all-important point. In this chapter, I in no way consider
myself to be “airing dirty laundry.’’ I am defending the right of culturally sub-
ordinated African Americans to be themselves. Cultures are complex networks
of predispositions, values, behaviors, expectations, and routines. Although we
can expect to find some maladaptive behaviors within all cultural settings
(some introduced and maintained by outside forces), what we see more often
is the adaptive functions of cultural behaviors. In some cases, sets of behaviors
are simply reflexes of what we may call a people’s metastyle or expressive orien-
tation. In all cases, scientific analysis is required before we dismiss behaviors
with negative value judgments, especially when those negative judgments are
based on imposed values of an oppressive outside culture. This approach to the
language under discussion is in line with the non-absolute cultural relativism
practiced by contemporary anthropologists.
 Directness in the use of AAE 

As DuBois (1961 [1903]) and others after him have observed, African
Americans have been burdened by carrying two inseparable and sometimes
contradictory cultural frameworks: their own and the dominating one, the
latter often preventing them from seeing the value of their own. African Ameri-
cans should stop turning automatically apologetic when African American
cultural behaviors have a negative value within a White, mainstream context,
even though they have a positive or neutral value within the context of the
African American community. Such African American behaviors should be,
if anything, explained. Many of the behaviors that African Americans some-
times wish to disclaim were integral, functional characteristics of the highly
successful all-Black institutions that flourished before integration — educa-
tional institutions not the least among them.
Consequently, the speech behaviors of concern in this chapter must be
understood as not necessarily negative. Furthermore, they can be shown to
have been (and still to be) of use in many institutional settings. A reader might
object that there are many “positive’’ speech behaviors that can be written
about. Why focus on speech that does not characterize all African Americans
or all African American social settings and puts the African American commu-
nity in a bad light? Such objections raise, again, a fundamental question: On
what basis is speech to be judged negative, positive, or neutral? On whose
norms is such an evaluation based? Is it not important to understand contro-
versial speech through empirical analysis and interpretation? My claim is that
we must approach this material free of biases in order to understand its true
nature, role, and function in African American communities. It is of prime
importance that this speech occurs within a context of cultural domination and
internalized oppression which makes it difficult even for many African Ameri-
cans to approach it neutrally and empirically.
African American language scientists who are culturally African American
are in the best position, other things being equal, to theorize controversial
realms of Black language behavior and, particularly, African American verbal
culture as a whole. This is due to their intimate knowledge of it and the huge
head start in this type of study that such knowledge provides given that macro
patterns are often not discernable without a lifetime of immersion in the
community. Also true is that African American scholars are not as vulnerable
as non-African Americans to charges of sensationalism and exoticization,
although they are certainly not immune to such charges.
Morgan’s (1991) point that studies of African American English fail to give
a balanced view of African American communities, having focused primarily
 Arthur K. Spears

on male adolescents of the working class and their street culture, was well
taken. Missing, for the most part, are studies of the African American middle
class, females, and social environments other than those related to street cul-
ture. Though her point was well taken, notwithstanding that what she criticizes
has, to some extent, been corrected, it must be remembered that most of the
aspects of language use that have been documented are also found, often in a
modified form, among women and the middle class, to single out two
underresearched African American groups. Moreover, much of the behavior
that the African American middle class typically scorns is nonetheless well es-
tablished among them. This is a reflection of the values conflict, as noted above,
arising from the embrace of White mainstream norms as well as African Ameri-
can ones even though the two are sometimes in conflict. However, culturally
African American behavior is indeed more firmly rooted and more visible in
the working class. In the middle class, a number of the controversial verbal
behaviors are age-graded, not culturally so but due to life trajectories: by adult-
hood, many middle-class Blacks cease to engage in them with any frequency
due in large measure to their not finding themselves in the social situations
where such behaviors would be appropriate or understood. One thing is clear:
many people in the African American middle class, currently highly-placed
professionals among them, have engaged in the behaviors discussed below
whether they currently do or not. This is by no means cause for concern; it is
cause for us to deepen our understanding of language use in the entire African
American community and cause for us not to stigmatize behaviors simply be-
cause they find disapproval in White mainstream culture.
These remarks about African American researchers’ headstart in no way
negate the important findings and insights of language researchers who are not
African American such as Abrahams (1970, 1975, 1976, 1999), Dundes (1990),
Folb (1980), Goodwin (1990), Gumperz (1982), Hecht and associates (Hecht/
Collier/Ribeau 1993), Kochman (1972, 1981), Labov (1972), and Wolfram/
Schilling-Estes (1998).
Essential to stress is that linguists are in the best position to provide analy-
ses and assessments of controversial African American speech and they should
be doing so; but currently, hardly any are. By far, most of the media commen-
tary on these kinds of Black speech behaviors is done by non-linguists who
often do not understand even the most basic principles of sociolinguistics and
language change and who fail to place their comments on African American
language and culture within the context of institutional racism (Spears 1999).
Thus, there is an entire media discourse on rap, to take one example, that is
 Directness in the use of AAE 

grounded in normative and linguistic biases that the commentators do not even
realize they have.

. Directness: Form, meaning, and function

In this essay, I focus on speech typified by what I call directness, which is iden-
tified by some combination of the characteristics listed below, expressed by
inescapably biased terms that spring from the norm-imposing discourse of the
basically White mainstream. These terms reflect the inherent cultural bias, or
cultural loadedness, of a significant portion of the mainstream General Ameri-
can English lexicon. The characteristics at issue are aggressiveness, candor,
dysphemism, negative criticism, upbraiding, conflict, abuse, insult, and obscen-
ity — all frequently deployed in the context of consciously manipulated inter-
personal drama. Direct speech is typically multilayered in terms of meaning
and function, both of which may be dependent primarily on emotional states
of interlocutors and audience response. Note that directness can in fact be
characterized only by a lengthy discussion because almost all of the terms we
have to talk about African American language are rooted in non-Black discur-
sive practices, terms which do not handle systematic ambiguity in meaning,
intent, and function well.
The terms direct and directness are used in other senses, but those senses
should not be confused with the sense used in this writing. For example, Mor-
gan (1998: 262, 263) characterizes “direct discourse’’ as that “marked by the
absence of collaboration’’ in situations where the event or context prescribes
speaker intent; e.g., at school and work (cf. the remarks on semantic license
below). Morgan’s directed discourse, a different term, is “marked by the ab-
sence of indirection, audience collaboration, and a disregard for social context.
Directed discourse is often used to disambiguate a situation, determine truth,
etc.’’ (Morgan 1998: 262).
Directness, in the sense used in this chapter, often involves inversion; i.e.,
what may superficially or on a literal level seem to be direct is actually non-
direct and vice-versa. For example, an ostensibly and superficially non-direct
comment may actually be direct in that it conveys a strong insult or reprimand
to those participating in the speech situation, who have the background know-
ledge required to interpret it correctly.
Directness, in the sense used in this chapter can also be characterized on
the basis of topic, for example, a willingness to bring up certain topics in
 Arthur K. Spears

certain contexts. Examples would be talking about someone being fat, foolish,
or ignorant — briefly or at length. Teachers talking disparagingly about stu-
dents’ parents and other relatives in front of a class would be another topic-
based example. (See the discussion below of directness in segregated public
schools where it is noted that directness was purposefully called upon).
However, it must be stressed that these characterizations of directness de-
scribe only the superficial and literal aspect of direct speech. What seems to be
a negative criticism can actually be a compliment or a very positive declaration.
The intent of direct speech can be determined only by context. Direct speech
can by no means be assumed to be negative in intent, although it certainly may
be. Motives behind direct speech range from encouragement and compliments
to humiliation.
It must be stressed also that directness characterizes some of the speech of
all human communities, including White Americans. The explicit comparative
observation that I will make here is that there is significantly more directness
in Black language behavior and that the rules and norms governing it are sig-
nificantly different from those of the White U.S. community. Notably, this
difference leads to important misunderstandings in educational, media, and
other contexts. Certain aspects of African American directness are witnessed in
the language use of communities outside the U.S.; e.g., Israel (Tannen 1998)
and Hungary (Tannen 1998; Erika Sólyom p.c.).
The question brought out by the quotation at the beginning of this chapter
brings up an important issue related to directness: How do we deal with main-
stream-censured types of language that are not considered controversial by
speakers who at least sometimes use such language? For example, let us con-
sider this issue with respect to obscenity (which does not necessarily co-occur
with directness; profanity might be used liberally in a remark intended as a
compliment). If for some speakers of a community what in mainstream con-
texts is considered obscenity is not obscene for those speakers, should those
speakers be considered as using obscenity? In plainer words, if muthafucka is
not an obscene word for me but it is for you, whose norm should prevail?
I have argued elsewhere (Spears 1998) that what is obscene for some Amer-
icans cannot be considered obscene for all, unless of course we support the
imposition of one group’s, or what we may call hegemonic or mainstream,
norms on all groups in the U.S. The sociolinguistic reality is that particular
norm sets are in effect only where the power of the group upholding those
norms is present. Thus, in local social settings where African Americans hold
the balance of power, African American norms prevail. This is so in spite of the
 Directness in the use of AAE 

fact that hegemonic or mainstream, specifically White, norms prevail in those

parts of society where mainstream institutions exert their power. Baker (1999)
has shown how in college and university settings in which Blacks are in control,
Black patterns of address prevail; where Whites are in control, White patterns
prevail. (The Black pattern is more formal, with title + last name being used
normally in business and professional settings, while the first name is normal
in White settings of these types.) Thus, where what is obscenity for some peo-
ple has been neutralized, it makes no sense to speak of obscenity. Neutraliza-
tion occurs when expressions considered by some as obscene are used by other
people in negative, positive, or neutral ways depending on the utterance in
which they occur. Many people who function exclusively or primarily in main-
stream settings are not aware of this. Neutralization that occurs across most
social contexts, if not almost all, results in the normalization of so-called ob-
scenity. In analyzing the speech dynamics of communities where there has been
neutralization and especially normalization, faulty, unrevealing analyses result
if obscenity is considered as obscenity in that context. This point can be made
perhaps more easily if we think of words such as bloody and thigh, which in
certain places during certain periods have been considered obscene but which
for present-day Americans are neutral. It is pointless in the context of contem-
porary American society to speak of bloody as an obscene word, although it can
of course occur in speech whose content is considered obscene.
Consequently, speech labeled as obscene, which may or may not occur in
direct speech, as well as directness, involves the issue of power in determining
which norms and whose labels prevail when norms and labels come into con-
flict.
Directness can be thought of as a principle of language use that is inher-
ently comparative with mainstream, basically White, language use norms and
African American ones. I present directness as a principle of African American
language use; i.e., a notion that accounts for a great deal of African American
speech use, perhaps most of it, but certainly not all. Direct speech is identified
on the basis of:

1. form — the actual sounds, words, phrases, etc., that are used; and
2. content — the meaning of what is said on the semantic and pragmatic
levels (semantics referencing basically to invariant, literal, “dictionary’’
meanings; pragmatics referencing context-situated meaning, which
depends on participants’ shared norms, sociocultural knowledge, and
background information, among other factors).
 Arthur K. Spears

The directness of speech, consequently, may be based on its literal or inter-

preted meaning, the latter a function of various types of pragmatic input. Prin-
ciples of language use (in the sense I use the term) are intended to allow us to
describe significant portions of speech output in macro terms that go well be-
yond terms such as verbal routines, presentational routines, acting out lines
(whereby speakers express their view of a situation and the participants in it,
especially themselves), speech events, etc.
It is important to point out, if only in passing, that there are broad and
deep commonalities in language use throughout Afro-America, a term many
scholars of African descent use to describe that region from the U.S. to Brazil
that has been so heavily influenced by African cultures. Thus, we would expect
directness to play an important role in the speech of these areas and it certainly
does according to research conducted to support the claim of language use
commonalities.
The Caribbean and cicum-Caribbean communities of people of African
descent are one example. An example of a speech event from this area is busin’
(cf. English abusing), which occurs in Guyana (and no doubt in other areas
too). Busin’ is described by Edwards (1979), who observes that it consists of
exchanges of insulting language and behavior meant to be taken personally.
Unlike quarrels, the bone of contention is not kept clearly in focus. In busin’,
if there is some issue in dispute at the beginning, by the time the actual busin’
has begun, that issue has been forgotten and anything whatsoever can become
the raw material on which insults are based. The following excerpt (1) is from
a busin’ session between two women, Joan (J) and Millicent (M) in midcourse
(Edwards 1979: 32,33):

(1) J: Why yu don’t keep out, yu red whore yu.

M: But look at she, comin’ till up me steps to call me whore. Who is
more whore than you?
J: Shut yu mouth, yu red whore yu.
M: What me colour gat to do with you, yu fool yu (Edwards 1979: 32,
33).

Something very close to busin’, which I will call abusing, occurs in the U.S.
Abusing, also, is concerned with straightforward, unmitigated insults meant to
be taken personally (as opposed, say, to ritual insults in playing the dozens).
The insulting from a topical standpoint is general: anything may be used as a
basis for insult. Cussin’ someone out (a speech event, to be distinguished from
cursing, which is simply the use of obscenity) is a form of abusing as is reading
 Directness in the use of AAE 

a person (Morgan 1998; Spears 1998). However, abusing can take place without
cursing. One instance of cussin’ out that I have found unforgettable occurred
in San Francisco in front of a beauty shop that was a gathering place for all
sorts of people from the neighborhood. Two middle-aged men, shabbily
dressed and perhaps homeless, in front of the shop were cussin’ each other out
vehemently, with forceful gesticulations and graphic threats. I thought there
would be a killing — but I should have known better. A rendering of the
cussin’ out is in (2).

(2) A: . . . muthafuck you muthafucka. What the fuck you gon do? Kiss
my ass muthafucka . . .
B: I’ll cut your goddamn throat nigga. Get the fuck out my face be-
fore I whip the shit out of your crazy Black ass . . .
A: . . . muthafuck you nigga. Jump if you gon jump, nigga . . .
The cussin’ continues for about five minutes and then starts winding down as
the speakers walk away from one another, occasionally turning back to the
other to hurl some more cussing. Then it ends, with no physical violence (cf.
Kochman (1981) on Black and White views of when a fight has started).
Rafael Confiant, the celebrated French Caribbean writer, has provided
another example (at a conference on Créolité at the Centre Pompidou in Paris,
Fall 1992): An older gentleman who is quite taken with one of the widows of
a village passes her each day saying (English translation): “You’re ugly! You
sure are ugly!’’ The widow knows that his attention is positive and compli-
mentary because she is communicatively competent in the language of her
community. I can see this scenario occurring very easily, particularly among
older denizens of my multi-class block in Harlem. The word ugly probably
would not be used, though it could be. More likely would be surface insults
referring to the car or clothes of the object of interest. Indeed, in these commu-
nities, the first moves in courtship not infrequently involve verbal sparring,
which can include reprimands and put downs.
Sometimes the degree of directness of the interchanges in these situations
is a function of the degree to which the person approached, positively or nega-
tively, receives the attention of the initiator (who may be female or male). Con-
sider the following rendering (3) of an exchange that occurred at a potluck
dinner party organized by the students in an African American culture course.
The party was at the home of one of the professors who co-taught the course;
a few relatives, not in the course, of the hosting professor had shown up. One
of them (G) caught sight of a young lady (L) he liked:
 Arthur K. Spears

(3) G: So I guess you’re one of the students in the course, learning all
about Black culture, hunh?
L: [fully aware of the remark’s intent] Yes, I came with my boyfriend,
over there; he’s in the course too.
(For all practical purposes, she has told him to get lost, but he can-
not drop the issue because others are present and have witnessed
the exchange. He would lose face.)
G: So what do you do with your spare time, when you’re not studying
and carrying on?
L: [falling into the trap; her speech and behavior strongly suggest that
culturally she is not African American or only slightly so] A lot of
things.
G: Like what?
L: Ummm, I like to cook.
G: [sharply] Cook! Well you need to study that some more. It looks
like you damn near burned that casserole thing you brought.
(The woman tries to defend her casserole, but the scene has basi-
cally ended. The man has saved face, and he is ready to move on.)

Direct speech requires contextualization for correct interpretation. Mem-

bers of the speech community alone are qualified to interpret it. Direct speech
has the full range of functions and interpretations that non-direct speech has.
It can be used, for example, to maintain decorum, teach, inform, aid in negoti-
ating roles and role hierarchies, entertain, pass time, demonstrate verbal wit
and creativity, express the speaker’s emotional state, and define a social situa-
tion. Essentially, then, words are all subject to their speakers’ wills. Literal, dic-
tionary meanings may be stripped off at the speaker’s discretion, as they are in
one set routine (4):

(4) Father: Go to bed!

Little boy: Aw, daddy, we’re playing dominoes.
Father: I’m gonna domino your ass if you don’t go to bed now.
The word domino in this instance no longer refers to a board game, nor is it a
noun. It has become a verb meaning something like ‘whip’, as in “whip your
ass if you don’t go to bed now’’. (I am aware that Whites employ this routine
also. Here, however, I am interested in the Black use of it.)
The crucial observation here is that African American English speakers have
a broad kind of semantic license–to mean and not to mean; to use language in
a relatively literal way or not to do so; to make words mean whatever they want
 Directness in the use of AAE 

them to mean, often, but not always, in cooperation with their audience. This
is why speech that may appear to outsiders to be abusive or insulting is not
necessarily intended to be nor is it taken that way by audiences and addressees.
It is also why speech that may seem a little odd or perfectly normal from the
point of view of some hearers would actually be insulting and abusive if those
hearers knew what was really being said.
As an example of semantic license, consider what I have observed repeat-
edly at parties where there are Blacks and Whites. There usually comes a point,
late in the evening, when two or more Blacks in attendance will get into a dis-
tinctively Black verbal routine. Usually Blacks, particularly middle-class profes-
sional ones, will allow White speech norms to prevail most of the evening, es-
pecially if there is a majority of Whites. But the restraint eventually wears
down. Often, the trigger for the initiation of the distinctively Black verbal rou-
tine is the desire to say something with Whites listening or within hearing dis-
tance that the Blacks do not want the Whites to understand. This is done with
semantic license, seeming to talk about boats, cats, a staircase, a bottle of soda,
whatever, while actually talking about people nearby or all the Whites at the
party or even about other Blacks at the party who are not privy to the meanings
that have been negotiated. Such speech can be characterized by directness be-
cause of its content: disparaging or insulting remarks about others who are
present in the social situation and possibly overhearing.
Sometimes semantic license simply becomes part of a conversation with no
detectable triggering factors. When this happens and Whites are part of the
conversation, the Whites very quickly fall silent, unable to contribute to the
conversation following a new principle of discourse and meaning. Frequently,
once a form has been stripped of its meaning and a new meaning negotiated,
sometimes through non-verbal behavior — especially with eye and head point-
ing — the interlocutors take the “new word’’ or “new expression’’ and weave
it through a lengthy conversational exchange. Consider the reconstructed con-
versation in (5).
(5) A: I didn’t know there were going to be so many college students here.
B: [picking up on the special meaning of college students and letting
A know this] I know they must do a lot of late night studying too.
C: [has picked up on the meaning and continues the conversation] Um
humh. They all need to be taking that course on . . . jurisprudence.
A: Or abnormal psychology.
B: Or criminology.
(Laughter)
 Arthur K. Spears

By the time C has mentioned criminology, the cat is out of the bag, so to speak.
There is no longer any motivation to use semantic license. All have had a
chance to display verbal wit and, thereby, entertain themselves a bit while wait-
ing to be seated in the late night eatery, apparently frequented by a good num-
ber of persons of unsavory reputation and unorthodox occupation.
Example (5) could be classified as signifying since, in the crowded eatery,
various persons who were being referred to could have heard the derogatory
remarks and interpreted them correctly. Example (5) shows directness via topic
and function. The topic is the questionable character of many persons in the
eatery; the conversation functions to negatively criticize those persons within
earshot.
Directness includes at least some types of indirection, which has been
much discussed in the literature of African American speech use. As Mitchel-
Kernan (1970, 1972), Morgan (1989), Smitherman (1977), and a number of
other scholars have stated, a key element of signifying is the signifier’s address-
ing remarks to someone other than the target of the remarks or even seemingly
addressing them to no one in particular. Consequently, signifiers often make
use of indefinite expressions such as some people, a lot of people, somebody,
etc., to obscure the target. They may also use semantic license, as in (5). In
these ways, signifying shows indirection. It also shows indirection in the sense
that figurative language is often used in making a point. A speech event such
as signifying is direct, in the sense I am using the term, because, when properly
interpreted, it manifests some combination of the characteristics of directness
just mentioned (e.g., candor, negative criticism, insult, and so forth).
Mitchell-Kernan (1972: 167) provides and analyzes a useful example of
signifying (6) that does not make use of semantic license:
(6) I saw a woman the other day in a pair of stretch pants, she must have
weighed 300 pounds. If she knew how she looked she would burn
those things.
Mitchell-Kernan explains that
Such a remark may have particular significance to the 235-pound member of
the audience who is frequently seen about town in stretch pants. She is likely to
interpret this remark as directed at her, with the intent of providing her with the
information that she looks singularly unattractive so attired (Mitchell-Kernan
1972: 168).
Mitchell-Kernan’s example (6) shows directness in the sense that it ex-
presses candor and negative criticism, among other things. It also demonstrates
 Directness in the use of AAE 

that directness is not simply a property of the more formulaic, rule-governed

kinds of verbal routines or speech events such as playing the dozens; it may be
present in the least formulaic kinds of everyday conversational exchanges, even
those that do not fit clearly into any of the more structured, formulaic speech
events, acts, and routines that have been discussed in the literature. Consider
(7), a reconstructed conversation from an extended middle-class family at a
Christmas day gathering.

(7) Sheila: [perky, in her 30s, wearing her new Christmas gift, a green
warmup suit] Oh, I l-o-o-o-ve this. It’s so nifty. Don’t you love
it? Look!
Gloria: [Sheila’s sister, 40s, unimpressed] You look like a damn frog.
(Sheila continues merrily on; no one reacts except for a few
faint chuckles.)
As with all exchanges, there is a great deal of history in this one. Sheila may
simply have wanted to annoy Gloria. For one thing, Sheila’s behavior could be
interpreted as “acting like a White woman.’’ She says “nifty,’’ a word associated
more with Whites, and is walking in a perky way, tossing around her long po-
nytail. Hair in Black communities is fraught with meaning: Sheila has long hair;
Gloria, who is also light-skinned, has always had short hair. Sheila can be re-
membered as a girl, walking around our grandparents’ house ostentatiously
combing her waist-length hair, which had just been straightened, but not yet
curled.
This exchange involves candid, straightforward, negative criticism. Gloria’s
remark shows a low-key disapproval, but her remarks are almost matter-of-fact.
None of Gloria’s non-verbal behavior indicates that she is joking. Many Blacks
would interpret Gloria’s attitude as one communicated by the standard phrase
“Nigga, please’’; i.e., “Give me a break. Surely you don’t think I’m going to go
along with this. This is me you’re talking to’’.

. Directness in an institutional context

To give some idea of how directness is structured into the broad range of Afri-
can American verbal culture, I will briefly discuss the “Golden ghetto’’ I grew
up in, located in a medium-sized, Midwestern city during racial segregation.
Golden ghetto is a term that brings out the positive aspects of large Black com-
munities during segregation and has been used by prominent Black social
 Arthur K. Spears

scientists, such as St. Clair Drake (1945), who wanted to focus attention on the
vibrant, positive impact of businesses, organizations, and institutions in such
communities. Golden ghettoes were multi-class, so at least one of their features
was that Black children growing up had an abundance of role models.
In the all-Black schools I attended, directness reigned. I will concentrate on
examples of directness that are very much in conflict with White, mainstream
norms, but in other cases of directness there would have been hardly any such
conflict. In those schools, woe to the student who came without her or his
homework. They would be read, abused, you name it; but never with obscenity
or coarse language since that would not have been in keeping with the teachers’
social position, although one might have heard an occasional damn.
Consider the day Patricia Ann, an excellent student, came for some reason
one day to her eleventh-grade class without her homework. After berating her
for not having her homework (no exceptions were allowed), the teacher went
on to criticize her person and her family, mentioning along the way, “You’re
not pretty; you’re just yellow’’.
The import of this remark can be explained as follows. As in most African
American communities, this one suffered from colorism (the granting in most
social situations of more privilege to lighter-skinned individuals who were re-
ferred to with the color terms yellow, high yellow, and sometimes red or the
equivalent redbone. Light or light-skinned were often used in place of yellow.
Colorism in communities of people of color is one result of the cultural domi-
nation of such communities by the larger White-supremacist racist society. In
this school, colorism as a kind of internalized oppression had not yet been
systematically challenged as it was to be during the Black is Beautiful sub-
movement of the Civil Rights Movement. Yellow is the basic signifier of light
skin since it can be used to cover all kinds of lightness of skin instead of a skin
color term with a narrower range of meaning. The prototypical yellow person
was not only light-skinned, but also had wavy, curly, or straight hair, often
referred to, then and now, as “good hair’’. Additionally, he or she had facial
features more associated with Whites; namely, thinner lips and straighter noses.
The word yellow, without qualification, meant ‘pretty’ or ‘good-looking’ in
most situations. So, the teacher in effect told Patricia Ann that, though she was
yellow, she was not pretty as expected. His putdown also referenced the set
phrase “a lot of yellow gone to waste’’, which cuttingly names the putative trag-
edy of being unattractive in spite of being yellow. The teacher’s remark was
even more cutting because the student was, arguably, not prototypically yellow
because of her facial features.
 Directness in the use of AAE 

Another day, in the same class, a very popular, very tall basketball player
came without his homework. There was a great deal of tension in the class as
the teacher began to read him (i.e., to berate him in a way associated with per-
formance) after admonishing him because the player was known to have a bad
temper. Eventually, the student told the somewhat short-in-stature teacher who
was “in his face’’ (he had violated the boundaries of his personal space) to get
out of his face. The teacher addressed the tense situation directly by saying
something along the following lines:
(8) I know you don’t think I’m scared of you. You may be tall, but I’m
evil. (Everybody is on the edge of their seats. The teacher, while contin-
uing to talk, goes to the window to grab one of the long, heavy hard-
wood poles that was used to open and close very high windows.) I’ll
take this pole and wrap it around your empty head. When I get
through with it, it’ll be empty and crooked too . . . you think I won’t.
Try it! Here I am, try it!
The student did nothing but mumble; the scene gradually dissolved as the
teacher eventually went back to the lessons.
In White-mainstream-culture-dominant classrooms, the teacher’s behavior
would be judged in a highly negative way. In many contemporary urban high
school classrooms, the student might well have assaulted the teacher in a com-
parable situation. However, based on reports I have received from students,
a level of directness comparable to that in (8) is evident in “all-Black’’ schools
where African American culture is dominant; i.e., those having African Ameri-
can administrators and an almost completely African American student body.
In the situation recounted in (8), a student assault on the teacher would
have been highly unlikely, and some reasons for this are not obvious. Chief
among the obvious reasons is that the student came from a solid home where
the parents would have sided with the teacher if the event had come to their
attention. Most of the students’ homes were of the same kind; thus, discipline
problems in the high school were nearly non-existent. The teacher had a right,
so to speak, within that community to be verbally aggressive — to use that
culturally-loaded term — with the student, especially given the teacher’s pro-
fessional responsibility to attempt to get the student to do his homework.
It just so happens that there was another dynamic present in the classroom
that might well translate to a contemporary urban classroom with Black stu-
dents and a Black teacher. The classroom situation was especially intense be-
cause the teacher was universally assumed to be a “punk’’ or “sissy’’ (largely
 Arthur K. Spears

equivalent terms meaning ‘homosexual’). His verbal aggression, then, was a

double assault on the basketball player’s “face’’, or reputation: he made the
student look bad in front of his peers and the student was being made to look
bad by a “punk’’, an assault, so to speak, on the basketball player’s masculinity.
The especially high tension created by these factors was offset, however, by the
stereotype that “punks’’ were vicious fighters, often carrying switchblades.
Added to this was that the teacher had cultivated the impression that he was
“crazy’’ (i.e., likely to do anything). Thus, it was entirely believable that he
would have used the pole on the student, whether he actually would have or
not. As a matter of fact, this teacher was the most verbally aggressive of all. The
reason he was able to take directness to an extreme had to do with community
norms of decorum, rights, and responsibilities; roles recognized by the commu-
nity and stereotypes associated with them; and the persona the teacher had
constructed. In sum, directness, in all social settings, comes in degrees, affected
in complex ways by the many mental and material factors that come into play
in any social situation.
In another instance, in the school office, the principal had come out of his
adjoining office. Quite gregarious, he stopped to talk with the two or three
students there for various reasons, but focused on one student who was a very
popular football player. The student, who was always very cool in his pose,
seemed not to want to hear the advice the principal was giving him in an avun-
cular way. The student looked elsewhere and seemed to be ignoring the princi-
pal. At that point, the principal stated roughly the following:
(9) Now you’re looking out the window and every place else but at me and
I’m trying to tell you something . . . so you won’t end up like your
daddy. Now you don’t even know who your daddy is, but I know him
— and know where he is now. You look just like him. And if he was
looking at you now, he’d be ashamed of your sorry, pitiful self.
Everybody in the office was embarrassed for the student, partly because the
student was so embarrassed himself. But the crucial point is that the student
started paying attention to the advice the principal was trying to give him if for
no other reason than to avoid another profound embarrassment.
The high school was excellent in terms of the education it provided
students. It ranked with celebrated all-Black high schools, of which there
were many, such as Dunbar in Washington, D.C. Classes were often named by
the professions conspicuously taken up by their members. For example, the
class right behind me was the “doctor class’’ (roughly 6% of the class became
 Directness in the use of AAE 

physicians). All of the teachers and administrators were quite willing to insert
themselves into students’ lives to make sure they succeeded. When students
who were thought to have great potential were backsliding, they were often
called out in public and talked to with directness. Most important is that teach-
ers knew how to get and keep students’ attention and respect. They knew what
kind of speech would be effective and the specific situations in which it would
be effective. There was never a dull moment because all of the faculty, adminis-
trators, and staff accessed regularly a wide range of Black speech genres to do
their job and often employed them theatrically.
Persons who did not grow up in these communities would find the teach-
ers’ and administrators’ behavior scandalous; cause for contract termination if
not lawsuits. None of the students thought their behavior was anything out of
the ordinary and it would never have occurred to us to complain to parents
about it. The parents, had we done so, would have asked what we had done to
elicit that behavior. Since such direct speech behavior was always purposeful,
the parents would have agreed with the school teachers and administrators.
Indeed, the parents engaged in the same kinds of speech behavior themselves.

. Conclusion

Directness is one of the principal features of African American language use.

It has a long history of being effectively used in Black cultural contexts for the
full range of social ends and, it must be stressed, for highly positive, important
social ends.
Scholars who are most qualified to talk about directness often do not. To
some extent this is due to a desire not to “embarrass the community’’ or “to
present the community in a bad light’’. However, salient features of Black life
and culture are just that and there is no reason to be embarrassed by them
simply because they are in extreme violation of White, mainstream norms of
behavior. To do so would be to fall victim to the twoness in Black life, de-
scribed so eloquently by DuBois (1961 [1903]), that is the tension between
community internal and external norms.
The huge differences between White mainstream and African American
speech norms have been cited by many Black educators as one of the important
causes of some Black students’ low achievement. The phrase I have heard over
and over since the onset of integration is, “They don’t know how to talk
to Black children’’ — “they’’ usually referring to White teachers and, if not,
 Arthur K. Spears

non-Black teachers or Black teachers who are not culturally Black. Keep in
mind that directness is not simply about “aggressive’’ talk (in comparison with
other verbal cultures); it also comprises candour, topic selection, and many
other attributes that are structured into performance, drama, and ritual.
I pose the admittedly provocative question: To what extent is this true?
How can we begin to talk more revealingly and candidly about disjunctions in
language use and norms involving the full range of multi-ethnic, multi-class,
and multi-gender contexts? The result of such investigation should not be to
blame anyone but to try to deepen our understanding of the range of American
verbal cultures in order to improve education. The questions I pose reflect only
one of the reasons it is critical that we improve our understanding of directness
and other distinctive speech principles, practices, and norms involved in Afri-
can American language use.

Notes
. All personal and place names have been changed except those of public personalities and
places associated with them.
. This is particularly true in cases of public rhetoric delivered in a Black cultural framework
but interpreted by Whites or other non-African Americans. Perhaps one point would be
helpful concerning this (needlessly) very difficult topic: within the African American
cultural sphere, a person may speak “hatefully’’ of an individual or groups, but it usually
does not mean that the speaker has anything against them. The speaker may simply be
“going off ’’ or engaging in another behavior falling under the rubric of abusing (see be-
low). Blacks may speak abusively of Blacks (e.g., “Niggas ain’t shit’’), but it seldom means
they actually believe that. Such speech is often received as entertaining because often it
is. Common too is that, if the speaker sees that his or her words are entertaining or pro-
ducing some kind of energetic response, she or he may well respond by intensifying it.
I have witnessed individuals laughing while being verbally abused because it was done
creatively and theatrically.
. As this term is used by most people, it refers to short insults, often in a ritual setting, of
the form “Your mama (or another relative) so [pejorative adjective], she . . ’’. For exam-
ple, “Your mama so ugly, she have to sneak up on a glass to get a drink of water’’.
. Sometimes getting real is construed as a broader type of speech event that includes the
more vituperative type of (sub)speech event of “going off ’’. Even if construed as two
fully separate speech events, the boundaries between the two become blurred as a speaker
moves from moderation in speech to vituperation.
. Of course, African American culture is not monolithic, but there is certainly a shared core
found throughout the U.S. (and the Caribbean).
 Directness in the use of AAE 

. I am included among them. Since I now live in a culturally African American commu-
nity, I still have occasion to engage in direct language use, especially since the community
is multi-class. Harlem, the community I speak of, has a considerable number of non-
African Americans, but the tenor of the community in terms of commerce, public inter-
actions, and social life is African American.
. Wolfram/Schilling-Estes (1998: 82ff) use the term directness also. They treat what is basi-
cally the same phenomenon, but they do not use directness or indirectness (cf. indirection
below) in exactly the same way I use it here. Notably, this chapter’s notion of directness
includes indirection. (I started using the term before I accessed their work.)
. See, however, Spears (1998). Some linguists have tackled the broader issue of so-called
“bad language’’, which is included within what is referred to as direct speech, without
special reference to the African American community; e.g., Andersson/Trudgill (1990),
Honey (1983), Hughes (1992), Jay (1992), and Milroy/Milroy (1985).
. Abrahams’ (1975) term, following Goffman (1955).
. This corresponds to Reisman’s (1974) report on semantic license (my term) in Antigua
and is no doubt valid for the Caribbean in general.
. I use indirection rather than indirectness, which is also used in the literature (e.g., Morgan
1998). I prefer the first term because it is not parallel in morphological structure to direct-
ness and, in that way, reflects the fact that indirection is not the direct opposite of direct-
ness. Directness includes indirection.
. It should be observed, however, that anti-colorism and counter-colorism (evaluating
darker skin and associated physical features more highly than “yellow’’ attributes) exist
along with colorism in African American communities. However, colorism is dominant.
. These are students who have attended New York City public schools that they character-
ized as “all Black’’. I would assume that some of the students and administrators may
have been non-African American (in the sense of not having been born and/or raised in
the U.S.), most probably from the Caribbean.
. Sissy tended to be used more by older Black people in the Midwest where I grew up, but
younger ones certainly used it too. For about one year only, the term fang was heard, but
only in reference to females (and used primarily by females). This was what I call a “word
of the moment’’, one that suddenly starts being used and whose meaning starts off rather
specific but soon becomes very diffuse. Fang, in its early stage, tended to convey the
meaning ‘lesbian’ (a term not used) or ‘someone who engages in questionable sexual
behavior’. Fang was probably derived from fag (< faggot). The term gradually became a
generalized insult, not really having any specific meaning, simply a word to be used in
verbal skirmishes as the insult most likely to produce laughter in the audience. It becomes
what we may call a “speech genre marker’’, since it would only occur in genres whose
goal is to insult or put down an addressee or a third person. See Reisman’s (1974: 122)
discussion of a similar phenomenon in the Caribbean involving the word knuckle, which
lasted about four months. I have witnessed in the U.S. nearly all of the speech practices
 Arthur K. Spears

(sometimes in mitigated form) he discusses in reference to the Caribbean. Reisman’s

observations reinforce that claim that in terms of directness and language use in general,
Blacks in the U.S. and those of the Caribbean are even more closely related than in terms
of language grammar.

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—— 1976. Talking Black. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.
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tion and Standardisation. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
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 Chapter 10

The role of family, community, and school in

children’s acquisition and maintenance of
African American English

Toya A. Wyatt
California State University, Fullerton

. Introduction

Over the years, educators, child language researchers, politicians, the public,
and the media have all offered a myriad of solutions to address the educational
and language instructional needs of African American children. However, few
of these solutions take into consideration the complexity of the child language
acquisition process for African American and other child populations. In addi-
tion, the educational solutions that have been proposed for African American
children rarely address the range of language diversity that exists within the
African American speech community. Children do not just acquire language
in the same way they learn their ABCs or their numbers. There are so many
factors that influence how children acquire language and what they come to
know about language. African American children also come from a variety of
differing language socialization experiences. As a result, they are not a mono-
lithic group. Not all African American children speak African American English
(AAE). Furthermore, children who do speak African American English differ
from each other in the degree or frequency with which they use African Ameri-
can English features and rules.
The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the child language
acquisition process as it applies to African American children and to discuss the
various ways in which the family, community, and school help shape individual
children’s language development. Understanding the course of language devel-
opment and differing language socialization experiences of individual children
 Toya A. Wyatt

is crucial for educators who are involved with the development of effective
second-dialect instruction and classroom language programs. This same infor-
mation is equally important for speech and language clinicians who have to
distinguish between normal dialect difference and true communicative disor-
ders in African American English child clients.

. How children learn and acquire language: An overview of

child language acquisition/development theories

There are a variety of different theories that attempt to explain how all children
acquire the basic grammar, sounds, and conversational rules of their native
language. Behavioral models of language learning suggest that parental cor-
rection, modeling, and feedback play a key role in shaping children’s early
vocabulary, grammar, and phonology. According to this set of theories,
children eventually learn the grammatical rules, phonetic inventory, and
vocabulary of their native language through parental modeling, imitation,
reinforcement, and corrective feedback.
Cognitive theories, on the other hand, emphasize the relationship between
language achievements and the attainment of key cognitive skills. Researchers
who support cognitive models of language development have attempted to
show the parallel relationship between the emergence of key cognitive skills,
such as object permanence, and the emergence of related language behaviors,
such as the use of words like “bye-bye’’, “all-gone’’, and “again’’, to talk about
the disappearance and/or reappearance of objects (McCune-Nicolich 1981).
Biological theories tend to focus on universal and innate aspects of the
child language acquisition process. Chomsky (1965) promotes the view that
children come into the world with an innate ability to figure out the language-
specific rules of their native language from adult language input. Such theories
emphasize the universal nature of children’s language development by high-
lighting the fact that all children, regardless of their language background, be-
gin to say their first words at about one year of age and their first two-word
utterances at about 18 months of age. This even applies to children who are
exposed to American Sign Language (ASL) as their first language. Similar to
hearing children, deaf children exposed to ASL begin to sign their first one-sign
utterances at about 10–12 months of age and their first two-sign utterances at
about 18 months of age (Meier 1991). In addition, children who are hearing
impaired or deaf begin to babble at the same time and go through the same
 Children’s acquisition and maintenance of AAE 

initial stages of babbling development as hearing children (Maugh 1991). These

facts suggest a universal timetable for language learning. Other biological theo-
ries support the notion of a critical age period. According to the critical age
theories, children must be exposed to language input by a certain age if lan-
guage is to develop normally. It has often been observed that children who are
initially exposed to input after this critical age period display lasting cognitive
and linguistic deficits that ultimately impact on their ability to acquire
advanced language skills.
Social theories emphasize the sociolinguistic bases of language learning.
Like behavioral theories, social theories of language learning view parental
modeling and feedback as key to children’s language learning. However, social
theories place a much greater emphasis on the significance of caregiver-child
social interactions to the language teaching and modeling process. Social theo-
rists, for example, focus on the social exchanges that occur between caregivers
and their infants during certain joint routines. These exchanges can be seen
during daily parent-child feeding, verbal game-playing, and book reading activ-
ities. Those who support this model of language learning emphasize the impor-
tance of parental language modeling, teaching, and feedback strategies in the
development of children’s language. They also emphasize the social responsibil-
ity of parents to structure the language learning process for their children.
Each of these theories addresses to differing degrees the relative contribu-
tions of environmental influences (e.g., parental feedback, input, and
modeling) to the child language acquisition process. In spite of the differences,
each acknowledges, at least to some degree, the importance of significant others
in a child’s eventual development of language. For African American children,
these significant others can extend beyond parents to include peers, siblings,
and teachers as well as extended family and community members.

. The language development of African American children

African American children are no different than other children. They go

through the same universal early language learning stages. For example, similar
to other children, African American children begin to say their first words
around one year of age and their first two-word utterances around 18 months
of age if they are developing normally. Key differences, however, often begin
to distinguish the language productions of African American children from
same-age peers at about 3 years of age. This is the age when children are begin-
 Toya A. Wyatt

ning to master the language-specific syntactic, morphological, and phonological

rules of their native language system.
Until the age of three, there is little difference between the language devel-
opment of African American children from AAE and General American English
(GAE) backgrounds (Cole 1980; Stockman 1986). Both groups of speakers go
through an initial period where they display variable use of certain English
morphological markers such as past tense -ed, plural -s, and copula is. How-
ever, between three and four years of age, GAE child speakers begin to use
English grammatical forms such as plural -s and copula is consistently (at least
90% of the time) in certain sentence contexts. This differs from children ac-
quiring AAE as their primary language who may continue to produce these
forms in a variable manner (less than 90% of the time) in expected GAE sen-
tence contexts. The difference can be attributed to the fact that based on the
incoming language input from their surrounding speech community, AAE
child speakers have been able to figure out that their native language system
does not obligate the use of these grammatical forms to the same extent as GAE
within certain grammatical contexts.

. Language diversity within the AAE child speech community

Although much of language development is similar, there can be differences in

the degree of AAE linguistic feature use by individual AAE child speakers. I will
now discuss three of those factors below.

. Language diversity as a function of social class

One factor that contributes to linguistic diversity in the African American com-
munity is family social class or socioeconomic status. For example, the language
patterns of African American middle-class children may differ from that of
African American children from lower socioeconomic class backgrounds.
Kovac (1980) and Reveron (1978) found that at approximately four years of
age, African American children from middle-class backgrounds were beginning
to use fewer AAE features than children from lower working class backgrounds.
In addition, children from lower socioeconomic class backgrounds displayed
increasing use of AAE forms with increasing age.
Although the findings of Kovac (1980) and Reveron (1978) suggest that
family socioeconomic class can play a major role in the language paths that Afri-
 Children’s acquisition and maintenance of AAE 

can American children take, it is important to realize that language differences

can still occur among African American children from the same socioeconomic
background. For example, when selecting subjects for a study of copula produc-
tion patterns by preschool-aged AAE child speakers, I found a great deal of vari-
ation among children in their frequency of copula use even though the children
came from the same lower socioeconomic class background (Wyatt 1991).
As part of my child copula study, I screened the speech and language skills
of 36 African American preschoolers to identify those with normally-develop-
ing language skills and predominant use of AAE features. All of the children
resided within the same lower socioeconomic African American community in
a small Massachusetts city. They were all enrolled in one of two daycare centers
located within two blocks of each other and came primarily from single-parent
homes where the family income was less than $15,000.
I determined normalcy of speech and language development by using a
speech and language screening task that attempted to distinguish normal age-
appropriate and/or AAE-influenced speech and language productions from
those associated with possible speech and language disorders. For the study chil-
dren were asked to talk about pictures of objects and Sesame Street characters
engaged in numerous activities. A brief sampling of conversational speech was
also obtained during unstructured play activities with same aged peers. Children
who displayed normal AAE language patterns were selected as final subjects for
ths study. Examples of normal age-appropriate and/or AAE-influenced produc-
tions included phonology patterns, such as using /d/ versus /ð/ (e.g., in words
like then and that), and sentence production patterns, such as omitting the cop-
ula is in a sentence (e.g., He a big boy). Children who displayed several instances
of communication disorder-based differences were dropped from further con-
sideration as research subjects. Possible communication disorder-based errors
included inappropriately substituting /p/ for /f/ (e.g., in a word like fish), revers-
ing the order of adjectives and nouns (e.g., in a sentence like I have kittens
three), or omitting the article a or the (e.g., in a sentence like I have [a] cat).
A brief sampling of conversational speech was also obtained during un-
structured play activities with same-aged peers. Using models of AAE commu-
nity feature use by Taylor (1971) and Hoover (1978), I also developed a dialect
rating scale to identify children who displayed moderate to heavy use of AAE
grammar, phonology, stress/intonation patterns, and/or lexical items (Wyatt
1991, 1995). Children who qualified as moderate to heavy users of AAE gener-
ally displayed AAE feature use across one or more of the linguistic dimensions
mentioned above in at least 40% of their conversational speaking turns.
 Toya A. Wyatt

After I completed the speech and language screening process for candidates
for the study, I determined that seven children had no evidence of AAE feature
use during the speech and language sampling sessions and seven more did not
demonstrate significant (moderate to heavy) use of AAE across more than one
linguistic domain (e.g., grammar, phonology, suprasegmentals, and lexicon).
So, only twelve of the 26 children initially screened were determined to have
normal language skills (i.e., 46%) and qualified as predominant AAE speakers.
The other 14 children with normally developing language displayed little or no
use of AAE. This was the case even though all of the children came from similar
family backgrounds and resided in the same community. These findings suggest
that the same range of language diversity noted for older African American
speakers by other scholars (Baugh 1983; Hoover 1978; Taylor 1971) exists
within the African American child community as well.

. Language diversity as a function of regional dialect differences

In addition to understanding the language diversity that exists within com-

munities, educators working with AAE child speakers need to be aware of the
differences that might potentially exist between differing varieties of AAE spo-
ken in different parts of the country. Much of the earlier research on AAE
seemed to provide a unified account of AAE. For example, AAE copula studies
focusing on African American adolescent and adult speakers in Mississippi and
Texas (Bailey/Maynor, 1985, 1987), Harlem (Labov 1969), Detroit (Wolfram
1969), and Palo Alto, California (Rickford et al. 1991) all revealed similar rule-
based patterns of copula use. Replications of these studies with child populations
in other regional areas of the country provided additional support for a unified
description of AAE (e.g., Kovac 1980; Legum et al. 1971; Wyatt 1991, 1995). In
recent years, however, scholars have begun to examine ways in which AAE may
vary as a function of region (e.g., Southern rural versus Northern urban).
Recent research by Bailey/Thomas (1998), for example, has begun to docu-
ment phonological variants produced by AAE speakers in southern rural
communities that seem to differ, to some extent, from those documented in
most published studies of northern urban AAE speakers. Part of these differ-
ences may be related to the fact that the Bailey/Thomas (1998) data is partially
based on the WPA ex-slave recordings of older speakers which suggests possible
dialect change. However, these differences may also be a function of regional
variation that can be attributed to the differing social histories of communities.
The influence of sociohistorical factors such as the origins of the community,
subsequent settlement patterns, and the degree and nature of contact with
 Children’s acquisition and maintenance of AAE 

other speech communities have all been hypothesized to have a significant role
in shaping the unique language profiles of individual communities (Mufwene
1996; Rickford 1986; Winford 1997, 1998). These factors can also intersect with
a number of other individual social factors (e.g., speaker socioeconomic class,
age, and gender) to create distinct linguistic differences between communities
(Wolfram 1986) that are qualitative as well as quantitative.

. Language diversity as a function of language change

As in other speech communities, it is also important to recognize that language

use patterns of each individual African American speech community are dy-
namic and ever-changing. As a result, the language use patterns that character-
ize a community at one moment in time may differ at another moment in
time. Researchers have widely addressed this issue as part of the ongoing debate
about the changing relationship over time between AAE and GAE (e.g.,
whether AAE is converging toward or diverging from GAE).
Scholars involved in this convergence–divergence debate have often pro-
vided evidence from inter-generational studies of AAE feature use to support
their position. For example, Bailey/Maynor (1987), Myhill/Harris (1986), and
Vaughn-Cooke (1986) have revealed varying rates of AAE feature use among
younger versus older AAE speakers. Bailey/Maynor (1987) found higher fre-
quencies of habitual be use among preadolescent versus older adult AAE speak-
ers in Mississippi and Texas. Myhill/Harris (1986) made similar observations
about the use of third person singular -s (e.g., So I says to him) within the narra-
tives of younger versus older Philadelphia AAE speakers. These researchers at-
tributed these inter-generational differences to language change. Specifically,
they used their findings to claim that AAE is diverging from GAE, with younger
speakers developing and using a grammar that differs from that used in the past
by older AAE community members. In contrast, Vaughn-Cooke (1986), who
compared initial unstressed syllable deletion patterns of elderly middle-class and
younger working-class African Americans in Mississippi, suggested that many
of the observed generational differences in AAE feature use were the result of
normal age-grading versus language change factors. Regardless of whether such
changes can be attributed to language change or age, what is clear from each of
these studies is that the language use patterns of younger speakers can differ
from those of older speakers within the same speech community. This has im-
portant implications for educators who work with younger AAE speakers but
who rely on descriptive accounts of older speakers’ AAE grammar and phonol-
ogy for identifying AAE features in younger child speech.
 Toya A. Wyatt

. Language diversity: Implications for educators and clinicians

When factors such as community of residence, socioeconomic background, and

age are taken into account, it becomes clear that educators must avoid viewing
the language development of all African American children as homogeneous.
Not all African American children are going to be AAE speakers. Some, by vir-
tue of their language socialization experiences, will be GAE speakers. Even when
children are being raised in a community that is primarily AAE speaking, it is
important to recognize that they may not be native AAE speakers. In addition,
AAE speakers differ in the extent of their use of AAE features. This means that
educators must be prepared to approach the second-dialect instruction process
from an individualized perspective and in a way that meets the needs of diverse
learners. The latter is equally important for speech and language clinicians who
are involved in identifying children with possible communication disorders.
Clinicians must first determine a child’s true language use status before making
any judgements about the normalcy of their language production patterns.
Absence of the copula in the sentences of a five-year-old native GAE-speaking
African American child may indicate a communication disorder whereas the
same absence in a five-year-old native AAE-speaking African American child
may simply indicate dialect difference. In addition, clinicians must be sensitive
to normal regional differences in AAE use if they are to accurately distinguish
between phonological and grammatical differences resulting from a true under-
lying speech disorder and those associated with normal AAE use.

. Dialect variation

In addition to understanding how an individual child’s use of AAE can differ

as a function of family and community background, educators should also be
familiar with the effect of context. Below, I discuss linguistic and speaking fac-
tors that contribute to language variation in AAE.

. Dialect variation as a function of linguistic context

Linguistic factors (e.g., grammatical and phonological context) can influence

the frequency of specific AAE features in the speech of individual speakers. In
AAE, for example, there are several English grammatical forms that occur less
than 100% of the time in adult speakers’ sentences. For a period of time,
 Children’s acquisition and maintenance of AAE 

researchers attributed the presence and absence of these grammatical forms to

inherent variability (Labov 1969). However, since the 1960s, Labov and others
have been able to demonstrate the rule-governed nature of these grammatical
productions. For example, Labov (1969), Wolfram (1969), Baugh (1980), and
Rickford et al. (1991) were able to demonstrate that the copula is more likely
to be absent in AAE adult speech when it occurs: first, after personal pronoun
versus noun subjects (e.g., She a cry baby versus Tameka a cry baby); second,
before adjective (e.g., She big) and locative (e.g., She over there) versus noun
predicates (e.g., She a girl); and third, within second person singular/plural
versus third person singular contexts (e.g., are versus is). In addition, these
scholars were able to demonstrate that the copula is rarely absent in other
grammatical contexts such as: first person singular contexts (e.g., am); after
relative subject pronouns (i.e., what/that/it); in past tense contexts (e.g.,
was/were); and in clause- or sentence-final positions (e.g., Yes he is).
Research studies by Kovac (1980) and Wyatt (1991, 1995) revealed similar
patterns of copula use among preschool-aged AAE speakers. For example,
Wyatt (1991) found that AAE preschoolers were more likely to use zero copula:
after pronoun subjects (56%) rather than noun subjects (21%); before locative
predicates (35%) and adjective predicates (27%) rather than noun predicates
(18%); and in second person singular and plural predicates (45%) rather than
third person singular predicates (19%). In addition, the zero copula occurred
less than 1% of the time in past tense, first person singular, and final clause
contexts. This suggests that as early as three years of age, AAE child speakers
not only acquire the basic grammatical features of AAE but also the language-
specific variable rules that govern their use (Wyatt 1996).
These research findings may have some potential significance for educators
involved with the second-dialect instruction of AAE child speakers. For exam-
ple, educators may find it effective to help AAE child speakers understand simi-
larities as well as differences between their home language system and GAE by
first examining English grammatical forms in sentence contexts where the cop-
ula is obligated to occur in both dialects (e.g., in clause-final position or after
relative subject pronouns). It may then be useful to move on to studying those
sentence contexts which differentiate GAE and AAE copula use (e.g., those
contexts where forms like is are obligated to occur in GAE but not AAE). In
teaching these concepts, educators may want to provide children with language
data sets that show how AAE and GAE sentences are similar as well as dissimi-
lar in copula use patterns. When working on stabilizing production of the cop-
ula in those AAE sentence contexts where the copula can be variably absent,
 Toya A. Wyatt

teachers may want to focus first on those contexts where absence is less likely
in AAE (e.g., after noun subjects and before noun predicates) before moving
on to contexts that allow for greater verb absence (e.g., after pronoun subjects
and before adjective predicates). By doing so, teachers would be establishing a
hierarchy of instruction built on pre-established knowledge about AAE variable
feature rules. This hierarchy is, of course, based on the prediction that it would
be easier for AAE child speakers to first master GAE verb forms in those con-
texts where copula forms are less likely to be absent in their own variety before
proceeding on to contexts where absence is more likely.
Information about variable grammatical and phonological rules in AAE is
already being used by speech-language pathology and linguistics researchers at
the University of Massachusetts (UMass) who are involved with the develop-
ment of a dialect-sensitive speech-and-language test and screening tool for
diagnosing true communication disorders in AAE child speakers. At present,
most tests in the field of speech-language pathology tend to over-identify or
under-identify AAE child speakers for speech therapy services because they are
based exclusively on GAE grammar frameworks with little or no accommoda-
tion for dialect differences. The UMass researchers, however, are currently
working on ways to overcome this problem as part of a $3.5 million research
grant funded by the National Institutes of Health.
As part of their efforts, the UMass researchers are attempting to develop
test items that will elicit key grammatical features, such as copula is, in those
linguistic contexts that obligate its use in AAE as well as GAE (e.g., in clause
final position and after relative pronoun subjects). The UMass researchers are
hypothesizing that AAE child speakers who frequently omit the copula in these
obligatory contexts are producing sentences that do not match the observed
language use patterns of their native language community. Such children would
be potentially classified as displaying a true communication disorder. There
would, of course, have to be several other signs of speech-language difference
that could not be attributed to normal dialect-related factors before making a
final speech therapy placement decision. The focus of intervention would then
be on stabilizing grammatical forms in those sentence contexts considered
obligatory for both AAE and GAE.

. Dialect variation as a function of speaking context

Language variability in AAE child speech may also occur as a function of normal
code-switching patterns. A number of researchers (Etter-Lewis 1985; Ratusnik/
 Children’s acquisition and maintenance of AAE 

Koenigsknecht 1975; Wyatt/Seymour 1990, 1998) have documented early-devel-

oping code-switching abilities in African American children as young as four
and five years of age. Wyatt/Seymour (1990), for example, analyzed more than
800 utterances from speech samples collected from a five-year-old African
American child as she engaged in spontaneous conversational interactions with
her peers, teacher, and one of the research examiners over a two week period.
Each utterance was then examined for use of the following AAE variants: ab-
sence of final /t/ or /d/ in final consonant clusters; use of the present progressive
-in versus -ing; use of future intentional I’ma; absence of copula and auxiliary
is and are in statements; absence of copula and auxiliary is and are in questions;
and non-inversion of auxiliary verbs in direct wh- questions. Each utterance was
also coded for topic, conversational partner, and communicative intent.
Results of the analysis revealed some very interesting patterns in the pre-
schooler’s use of AAE features when situational-speaking context (e.g., topic,
conversational partner, communicative intent) changed. For example, with
respect to topic, the preschooler used the targeted AAE features 9% of the time
when talking about the content of pictures, but 47% of the time when discuss-
ing the feelings and comments of other children. With respect to conversational
partner, the preschooler used the targeted AAE forms 0% of the time with her
teacher who was White, but 15% of the time with the examiner who was Afri-
can American and primarily GAE speaking and 47%-53% of the time when
talking to her African American age peers who were primarily AAE speakers.
With respect to communicative intent, results revealed 11% use of targeted
AAE features when requesting clarification but 65% use of AAE features when
protesting and complaining.
In another study, Seymour/Ralabate (1985) found grade-related changes in
the code-switching behavior of elementary school-aged African American chil-
dren during productions of // in word-final position (e.g., with, both). Specifi-
cally, they found that first- and second-grade African American subjects were
more likely to produce // as /f/ regardless of the nature of the speaking task
(e.g., a structured word labeling task or spontaneous conversation). In contrast,
by the third and fourth grades, African American students continued to use /f/
for // in spontaneous conversation but switched to // in more structured
speaking situations.
The findings from both studies suggest that as early as five years of age, and
quite possibly even sooner, many African American children are already sensi-
tive to the changing social requirements of different speaking situations and
have the ability to effectively code-switch between AAE and GAE. The educa-
 Toya A. Wyatt

tional significance of these studies is that they may help to shed some light on
those factors that promote natural code-switching abilities in some preschool-
ers. This type of information would be very useful for developing instructional
methods that are effective in transitioning monodialectal AAE child language
speakers to bidialectal AAE-GAE speakers. These research findings, however,
also raise some interesting issues and questions about those factors that facili-
tate natural code-switching in some African American children. Furthermore,
this research raises questions about the relationship between code-switching in
children who are bidialectal and code-switching in children who are bilingual.
An examination of the bilingual literature suggests that several factors, such
as age of exposure, can play a significant role in the development of bilingual
abilities. Bilingual children who are, for example, exposed to two languages
before the age of three generally experience little or no interference between
their two language systems. In contrast, children who are exposed to the second
language after three years of age are more likely to make grammatical and pho-
nological errors in the second language that can be attributed to first language
influences. In addition, the research on bilingual children’s language develop-
ment shows that with increased exposure to the second language, a child’s lan-
guage dominance may shift over time. When this happens, they may change
from being more dominant in their first language to becoming more dominant
in the second language. At some point in their development, it is natural for
some children to reject one of the two languages (in many cases the first lan-
guage) and/or regress in their first language abilities. When this occurs, chil-
dren often become passive bilinguals who can understand but no longer speak
their first language proficiently.
Degree of exposure to both languages can also influence a child’s mastery
of a second language. Children who receive fairly equal amounts of exposure
to two different languages are likely to develop the greatest degree of bilingual
competence. This is the case regardless of whether exposure to both languages
occurred as a function of: one parent speaking one language and the other
parent speaking another; one language being learned in the home with the
other being learned at school; or two parents alternating in their use of both
languages (Langdon/Merino 1992)
For older children acquiring a second language, motivational factors (e.g.,
level of self-esteem, attitudes about the second language, and perceived value
of the second language) and family and community attitudes toward the second
language can also play significant roles in a child’s success with the second
language learning process. Children who grow up in communities where their
 Children’s acquisition and maintenance of AAE 

first language is highly valued are more likely to retain that language than chil-
dren who grow up in a community where their native language is devalued. In
addition, positive attitudes toward a second language can help promote second
language learning success.
It is highly possible that many of the factors influencing bilingual children’s
language development are equally influential in African American children’s
acquisition of second-dialect abilities. For example, given what we know about
bilingual children’s language development, one might predict the following
with respect to African American children’s second-dialect learning.

1. Those children who receive equally strong exposure to AAE and GAE dur-
ing the first three years of life may be more likely to develop more natural
code-switching abilities. This input may occur as a function of: a) exposure
to two caregivers, one who is more dominant in GAE and another who is
more dominant in AAE; b) strong exposure to AAE in one language envi-
ronment (e.g., grandparents’ home community) and strong exposure to
GAE in another language environment (parents’ home community); or c)
language input from two caregivers who are equally competent in both
language codes.
2. Children are likely to shift from being more dominant in AAE to being
more dominant in GAE as they receive increased exposure and become
more familiar with the second dialect. This may take years and may at
some point be accompanied by a loss of linguistic competence in and/or
rejection of the first dialect.
3. Normal second-dialect learning interference patterns can be expected when
initially learning the rules of GAE.
4. As AAE child speakers become older, their own personal attitudes as well
as family/community attitudes toward GAE and AAE are likely to have an
even greater impact on the eventual success of the second-dialect learning
process.
In the past and even in recent years, many AAE scholars have suggested
that the variation between AAE and GAE should be considered a form of style-
shifting as opposed to code-switching. The term style-shifting suggests variation
between a more informal way of speaking (e.g., AAE) and a more formal lan-
guage code (GAE) while code-switching suggests variation between two distinct
language systems which, according to Wolfram (1973), is an important require-
ment of code-switching. This point is also emphasized by Labov (1998) who
asserts that in order for variation between two language varieties to be consid-
 Toya A. Wyatt

ered code-switching, the two language systems must be independent of each

other. Labov (1998) further states that this is not the case with AAE and GAE
because they share a common core of English grammatical features (a General
English component). Other scholars have attempted to differentiate style-
shifting from code-switching by suggesting that style-shifting involves more
quantitative changes in language feature use and that code-switching involves
qualitative as well as quantitative changes (Wolfram 1991). In addition, both
Wolfram (1973) and Berdan (1975) describe code-switching as a process that
involves simultaneous shifting of several different phonological and grammati-
cal features in response to changes within the social speaking situation. One
would surmise that these changes would also involve several different linguistic
parameters (e.g., grammar, phonology, vocabulary, and stress/intonation).
Code-switching contrasts with style-shifting which, according to both research-
ers, involves the shifting of single, isolated variants.
Although scholars such as Wolfram suggest that the variation exhibited by
AAE speakers when switching to GAE involves more quantitative versus quali-
tative language changes, one could also conceivably argue that when African
American children switch between AAE and GAE, there are quantitative as well
as qualitative changes. For example, it is highly possible to observe children
who will do more than increase their frequency of AAE feature use (e.g., using
a higher frequency of present progressive -in versus -ing) when interacting with
AAE-speaking versus GAE-speaking peers. Such would constitute a quantitative
change. However, it is also highly possible that such children might use certain
AAE features such as habitual be that would never be used with GAE speakers.
This would be an example of a qualitative change. In addition, switching from
one speaking situation to the next (e.g., from the classroom to the playground)
is likely to result in accompanying simultaneous shifting of several language
elements across a number of linguistic dimensions (e.g., changes in pitch, stress,
intonation, lexical verb use, pronunciation, and grammar). If this is the case for
at least some child speakers, then it seems important to reconceptualize models
of AAE that view AAE-GAE alternation as a form of style-shifting vs. code-
switching.

. The impact of community language attitudes on dialect change

One of the most important factors that can impact an individual child’s second
language learning success is their community’s reactions to, responses to, and
 Children’s acquisition and maintenance of AAE 

views of AAE and GAE. Educators need to understand the type of resistance they
may encounter from some students who receive subtle messages that their first
language system is inferior and that they must give up their native language
system to learn another. Resistance can occur when educators bring negative
language attitudes and biases about AAE into the classroom setting whether
conscious or unconscious (van Keulen/Weddington/Debose 1998). The uncon-
scious or conscious denigration of a child’s home language by teachers —
whether direct, indirect, or implied — can have deleterious consequences for
second-dialect learner success.
When teaching GAE to AAE students, it is important for teachers to con-
vey a mutual level of respect for both dialects in the classroom setting. In
addition, the primary goal of language instruction should be to establish
bidialectal competence in children without jeopardizing the integrity of the
first dialect. The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association already
espouses the latter principle in its 1983 “Social dialects’’ position paper. Spe-
cifically, that document states that no dialectal variety of English should be
viewed as a “disorder or pathological form of speech or language. Each social
dialect is adequate as a functional and effective variety of English’’ (23). It
further states that if speech-language pathologists become involved in the
provision of elective clinical services to individuals interested in improving
their use of GAE, the “role of the speech-language pathologist . . . is to pro-
vide the desired competency in General American English without jeopardiz-
ing the integrity of the individual’s first dialect’’ (24). This implies a
bidialectal approach to language teaching where the goal is to help children
acquire an additional code — not to eradicate or eliminate their first code.
Eradication approaches to second-dialect learning promote a view of AAE as
a substandard, incomplete, and deficit form of English. When teachers convey
to their students (directly or indirectly) that AAE can be just as effective as
GAE in various communication situations and that both dialects represent
complete, rule-governed language systems, second-dialect instruction is likely
to be a much more positive learning experience for AAE speakers. It is also
likely to be more effective.
Educators also need to understand the type of social pressures that some
African American children may experience in communities where the use of
AAE serves as a sign of community identity or solidarity. The issue of language
identity and solidarity is likely to be more important during the teenage years
when membership within certain peer networks is crucial to social acceptance.
There are some African American GAE speakers who are perhaps all too famil-
 Toya A. Wyatt

iar with the problem of appearing “to be White’’ or “sounding White’’ to some
African American community members. These negative views of GAE could
pose potential barriers to educators who are charged with the task of promoting
GAE in classroom and non-classroom environments.
Educators must also be familiar with the type of community resistance they
can encounter when attempting to use AAE or classroom educational training
materials written in AAE as part of the second-dialect instruction process
(Rickford/Rickford 1995). Rickford/Rickford (1995) provide an excellent his-
torical overview of the African American community’s response to AAE materi-
als, such as dialect readers when they were first introduced in the late 1960s.
The response has not always been positive. In fact, in many cases, communities
strongly oppose the use of non-standard English reading materials because the
use of AAE in the classroom is associated with the teaching of ‘‘bad’’ English.
This attitude was even evident in reactions from highly visible African Ameri-
can community members who went on record to denounce the Oakland Uni-
fied School District Board’s efforts to recognize Ebonics as a valid language
during the height of the Oakland Ebonics debate.
African Americans’ resistance to the use of AAE in the instructional process
can be explained in terms of how African Americans view AAE and the social
consequences of its use. In a survey that compared college students’ perceptions
of African American community responses to AAE to those actually articulated
by members of the African American speech community, Jones et al. (1994)
found some interesting views among African Americans concerning this issue.
For example, when asked “How do you think most African Americans view
AAE?’’, a significantly greater percentage of college student respondents (82%)
felt that African Americans would view AAE as a “form of cultural pride’’ or
as a “viable language’’. In actuality, only 50% of African American respondents
had a similar response. Likewise, when asked “Why do you think most African
Americans speak AAE?’’, 82% of college respondents felt that African Ameri-
cans would use AAE for “cultural identity’’ reasons in comparison to 53% of
African American community respondents. Finally, when asked “Why do you
think some AAE speakers would want to change the way they speak?’’, the ma-
jority of college respondents (73%) felt that those African Americans wanting
to change their speech would do so for “educational/professional success’’. In
contrast, the majority of African American respondents stated that they would
do so for “social acceptance’’ (62%). Group differences occurred on these and
a number of other questions in spite of the fact that there was no significant
 Children’s acquisition and maintenance of AAE 

difference between the two subject groups with respect to age, income level,
and educational level.
The educational significance of community attitude studies is that they
convey the importance of taking dialect into account whenever there is serious
discussion of educational programming for AAE child speakers. If community
attitudes toward AAE are not taken into account, educators are likely to run
into potential problems with community support. In addition, it is important
for educators to be mindful that individual student attitudes can either make
or break an educational program.

. Conclusion

So, in a nutshell, what is the importance of understanding the role of family,

school, and community in children’s acquisition and maintenance of AAE? It
is important for educators to be knowledgeable about the range of language
diversity that exists within any given African American community as well as
within their classrooms. This diversity is a function of several family, child, and
community factors and must be taken into account when designing the right
type of language program. It is also important for educators to be aware of the
various factors that can influence language variability within speakers. Knowl-
edge of this variability can be used to construct second-dialect language lessons
based on hierarchies of variable rule constraints as well as more effective mod-
els of natural code-switching. Finally, it is important for educators to under-
stand something about the culture of the community with which they are
working. This entails understanding how linguistic attitudes within a commu-
nity ultimately impact a child’s motivation for second-dialect instruction. Each
of these factors can play a significant role in teacher effectiveness. These factors
also have important implications for speech-language pathologists involved
with the diagnosis of communication disorders in AAE speakers.

References

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 Chapter 11

Pay Leon, pay Leon, pay Leon paleontologist:

Using call-and-response to facilitate language
mastery and literacy acquisition among African
American Students

Michèle Foster
Claremont Graduate University

. Introduction

Writing about the effects that sociolinguistic research has had on literacy
learning for African American students, I noted what we have learned from
sociolinguistic research conducted in the African American community (Foster
1992). Despite three decades of research on African American English (AAE),
including research on aspects other than phonology and syntax, educational
workshops that aim to improve the academic achievement, particularly the liter-
acy achievement, of African American students, still emphasize differences be-
tween “standard’’ English and African American English. One result is that most
teachers are not exposed to the range of linguistic resources of their African
American students and, thus, use a contrastive analysis approach in their class-
rooms with African American students (Lemoine 1998). My challenge to the
research community then as now is to investigate how features of African Amer-
ican English — features other than phonology and syntax that frequently are
topics of education interventions (e.g., Black dialect readers, structured phonics
programs) — might be adapted to instruction. For example, several researchers
have noted the presence of call-and-response (i.e., rapid verbal interaction be-
tween speaker and listener) in classrooms composed of African American stu-
dents and their teachers. Reactions have been mixed: some observers judge it as
a culturally relevant instructional practice while others criticize it as a pedagogi-
cal practice useful only for teaching basic skills (Cazden 1999). Indeed, in the
 Michèle Foster

most recent controversy over African American English, call-and-response

became a target of critics (Heilbrun 1997; Loveless 1997).
Nevertheless, using data from three years of an on-going study of one
teacher’s elementary school classrooms, this chapter, offered for heuristic pur-
poses, presents a working definition and points out some of the key dimensions
of the instructional uses of call-and-response. After a survey of the relevant
research, an examination of some of the conceptual and analytic issues related
to call-and-response, and a description of the classroom, this chapter presents
and analyzes several examples of call-and-response with the goal of illuminating
some of the fundamental, key, explanatory dimensions of this discourse pattern.

. Survey of relevant research

There is evidence derived from research, including my own, which, although

not widely known either in the educational or linguistic research communities,
suggests that other features of AAE may be useful in helping students from
these communities become literate. Focused on students in the elementary
though college levels, these studies fall into three categories: naturalistic studies
of classrooms have analyzed how teachers employ features of AAE in instruc-
tion and the effects on student achievement; other research has examined how
mastery of particular discourse patterns are related to literacy; while a few stud-
ies have systematically applied various features of AAE to classroom instruc-
tion. A brief review of this research follows.
One of the earliest studies analyzed how AAE-speaking students in 14 first-
grade Oakland classrooms were taught to read (Piestrup 1973). Piestrup docu-
mented four approaches to reading instruction, but one, distinguished from the
others and labeled “Black Artful’’, embodied many of the stylistic features that
characterize the verbal art in African American communities — call-and-
response, varied pace, rhythmic language, repetition, and creative language play
— and stood apart from the other three. Students taught with this style not
only achieved statistically significant higher reading scores on standardized
achievement tests, but these students were also more likely to codeswitch
according to context. While not a study of teacher behavior, the positive contri-
bution of creative language abilities to reading achievement is evident in an-
other study undertaken more than a decade later which demonstrated that
reading comprehension was higher among African American students who
were proficient in sounding, playing the dozens, capping, signifying, and other
 Pay leon, pay leon, pay leon paleontologist 

verbal routines of African American adolescents (Delain, Pearson/Anderson

1985). Another study that undertakes an analysis of the ways “writing instruc-
tion in school is used to establish ‘relations . . . among people and . . . cultural
traditions’’’ (Sola/Bennett 1985: 89) describes the distinctly Black communica-
tive style of an African American teacher in an East Harlem high school.
In other classroom research, Foster (1987, 1989, 1995) analyzed the dis-
course of an African American teacher as she interacted with her class of pre-
dominantly African American students at Regents Community College. Using
performance theory as a conceptual framework, this research examined the
teacher’s discourse, particularly her ways of speaking, exploring how, through
repetition, repetition with variation, call-and-response, rhythm, varying the
pace, and creative language, the teacher shifted her discourse style from a main-
stream style of talk which she used when she was pressing students for higher
achievement to an African American discourse style when she was teaching.
Using performances to help students interpret material they encountered in a
text or lecture, the teacher understood this style of speaking as indigenous to
the African American community but deemed it an appropriate and effective
way to interact in the classroom. Co-participants in the interaction, students
engaged enthusiastically in the performances which enabled students to better
remember and retrieve information. Thus, in addition to intensifying students’
social experience in the classroom, performances served one of the tripartite
functions of classroom discourse — conveying cognitive information — as well
as establishing and maintaining social relationships and expressing the speakers’
attitude (Cazden 1988).
In a teacher-research study focused on her community college classroom,
Meier (1996) has written a powerful account of helping students become aware
of the rhetorical strategies used in their everyday talk which are also present in
the speeches of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. Meier (1996) discusses
how students gradually recognized rhyme, rhythm, repetition, parallelism, anal-
ogies, short declarative sentences used for dramatic effect, the rhetorical strat-
egy of building up to the main point, chiasmus, and the use of opposites to
make a point in talk and texts and then used them in their own writing. By
presenting students with examples from various texts, having them bring in
examples from their own linguistic repertoires, and allowing students to talk
about various practices and try them out in their own writing, they became
much more powerful writers. In an ongoing program of research, Lee (1991,
1993) has systematically attempted to link the rhetorical features in the speech
events of the African American community to literary language to help students
 Michèle Foster

learn literary interpretation. This research has shown how to enrich the connec-
tion between the cultural models and linguistic structures in school with those
employed in non-school settings.
Mahiri (1996) analyzes the non-school literacy practices of two secondary
school students to illustrate how out-of-school literacy practices might be used
in the classroom by teachers seeking to connect the out-of-school and school
lives of their students. His analysis of student writing reveals many of the same
rhetorical elements of African American discourse style discussed, analyzed,
and highlighted as critical elements in studies by others — call-and-response,
signifying, figurative language, play with homonyms, word play, the use of
indirection (cf. Morgan 1991), and experimenting with and fashioning new
words for expression (Foster 1987, 1989, 1995; Hollins 1982; Piestrup 1973).
In a subsequent book, Mahiri (1998) argues not only that teachers should pay
attention to African American culture, the principal influence on youth culture,
but also draw on it as a resource for school curricula and make a conscious and
continuous effort to link learning to students’ backgrounds, particularly their
linguistic backgrounds.
Following the publication of my first article, Charles Long (p.c. January
1990) questioned the usefulness of studies such as mine that, he believed, ad-
vocated using African American discourse features for the recall of factual
information rather than for higher-order learning. Much later in an article
published shortly after the Oakland Ebonics controversy, Cazden (1999)
broaches the point again. Noting the emphasis on call-and-response features
in many analyses and descriptions of exemplary African American teachers, she
wonders whether these discourse forms are suitable for teaching the kind of
complicated understandings that today’s newer curriculum standards are
demanding from students.
Observing the differing responses of African Americans (e.g., Renee Moore,
who valued it) and European Americans (e.g., Anthony Petrosky, who criticized
it) to the presence of call-and-response patterns in classroom lessons with
African American pupils, Cazden attributes the discrepancy to differing con-
ceptions of the purpose of classroom discourse. Renee Moore’s positive view
is explained by her view of call-and-response as indexing solidarity and positive
valuing of the African American community and cultures. In contrast, while
acknowledging call-and-response as an effective mediator for teaching basic
skills because it (call-and-response) fits the technology of basic skills’ instruc-
tion and closely mimics testing situations, Petrosky simultaneously faults it for
its very limitations. Petrosky’s reservation is well-founded. Too often African
 Pay leon, pay leon, pay leon paleontologist 

American students who come to school with the propensity for using figurative
language and highly practiced in the skillful use of rhythm and rhyme never get
to develop these sophisticated language skills further because of the tendency
of schools to focus on having students first master the basics of grammar,
punctuation, and other conventions before moving on to more sophisticated
language skills (Heath 1983), which are usually only taught to the few students
who take creative writing courses.
Indeed, elsewhere I have argued that, properly capitalized upon, the rhetor-
ical features of African American discourse could be used as resources to help
students from this community who are already masters of the verbal forms
become as skillful in producing written forms as Lee has shown they already
can become in analyzing written forms. Pointing to my own development as
a writer, I explained how my learning to write academic prose was facilitated
when I taught myself how to mimic the prosodic features in my speech, some-
thing I worked hard to do in graduate school. Only then was I able to find my
own academic voice and a distinctive writing style (Foster 1997). Carol Lee
(1991) expresses the idea and the goal more eloquently when she writes, “the
voices of America’s diverse ethnic communities each have a linguistic power
that too often only the creative writer — the novelist, the poet, the dramatist,
the creative essayist — hears and appreciates’’ (291).
In her article, Cazden (1999) notes that Lee’s research has demonstrated
how students’ familiarity with signifying can be recontextualized into a bridge
for the interpretation of figurative language in literature. Cazden (1999) won-
ders whether call-and-response can also make an academic contribution and,
if so, which kind. She writes, “What are useful roles for a secular classroom
adaptation of this call-response discourse mode that derives originally from
sacred tradition’’? (39). This chapter sets out to answer Cazden’s question. It
examines how Vivette Blackwell, a primary school teacher whose students rou-
tinely become skillful readers and writers, uses call-and-response to help her
students by building upon and extending their indigenous linguistic abilities.
Before turning my attention to the classroom, I take up some of the conceptual
and theoretical issues germane to this analysis.

. Call-and-response: Analytic and conceptual issues

Several scholars have written about the African American discourse pattern
known as call-and-response (Mitchell 1970; Smitherman 1977; Davis 1985;
 Michèle Foster

Foster 1987, 1989). Smitherman (1977) defines call-and-response as “spontane-

ous verbal and non-verbal interaction between speaker and listener in which
all of the statements (‘calls’) are punctuated by expressions (‘responses’) from
the listener’’ (104). Classifying responses according to their effect or purpose,
Smitherman (1977: 107) lists five categories: 1. Co-signing is the term she uses
for a response intended to affirm or agree with the speaker. 2. Encouraging is
the name given to a response whose purpose is to urge a speaker on. 3. Repeti-
tion is using the same words as the speaker. 4. Completer refers to completing
the speaker’s statement in response to a request from the speaker or in sponta-
neous talking with the speaker. 5. On T refers to an extremely powerful
co-signing response.
In my view, repetition and completer relate more to the form of the response
than to its purpose. To these two I add repetition with variation, a category in
which the response is both repeated and altered. In my conceptual framework,
a response could be categorized both by its effect as well as by its form. Thus,
a particular response could be simultaneously categorized as a co-sign (because
its purpose was to affirm or agree with the speaker) or as encouraging (because
it aimed to urge a speaker on) and as repetition (if its form consisted of the
same words as those of the speaker), completer (if it completed the speaker’s
statement), or repetition with variation (if it repeated and altered the speaker’s
words). Responses can follow from a speaker specifically requesting them;
responses can ensue when speakers elicit them by manipulating their own dis-
course; or responses can be unsolicited and spontaneously interjected into the
ongoing interaction (Foster 1989). Entire call-and-response sequences can also
be classified according to their communicative purpose (Cazden 1988), a topic
I address later in this chapter.
Call-and-response is not limited to verbal codes, however. It is frequently
present in other codes — music and dance — of African American expressive
behavior (Thompson 1966; Lomax 1970). In African American music, the call-
and-response pattern can consist of alternating instruments and voices or
interchanging voices and instruments. Likewise, African American dance is
frequently organized around a call-and-response pattern. It is also not uncom-
mon for call-and-response patterns to alternate among multiple codes — musi-
cal, dance, and verbal — for example, with voice, instrument, or speech issuing
the call and the response encoded in dance, music, or other non-verbal
behavior (Hazzard-Gordon 1990; Malone 1996; Smitherman 1977).
For the purpose of this analysis, I draw on and extend Smitherman’s defini-
tion. Call-and-response is an interaction between speaker and listener(s) in
 Pay leon, pay leon, pay leon paleontologist 

which the statements (“calls’’) are emphasized by expressions (“responses’’)

from the listener(s), in which responses can be solicited or spontaneous, and
in which either calls and/or responses can be expressed linguistically, musically,
verbally, non-verbally, or through dance.

. Background

The data on which this chapter is based were collected from Vivette Blackwell’s
primary grade classrooms in two schools in two San Francisco Bay Area com-
munities during the 1996–97, 1997–98, and 1998–9 academic years. Both
schools were located in poor communities — one in a predominantly African
American community perceived by many to be one of the most dangerous in
the city and a participant in the school district’s desegregation order; the other
in a community with the highest transiency rate in the district. In both schools,
less than 10% of the students were White, the majority being students of color.
The class was composed primarily of African Americans; the other children
were from Korean, Samoan, Latino, Indian, Tongonese, Russian, Vietnamese,
Filipino, or mixed-race backgrounds. More than 75% of the students in both
schools received free or reduced lunches.
Inviting and visually appealing, the classrooms were festooned with posters
and signs. A sign at the entrance to one classroom advised, “Enter to Learn,
Mary Mcleod Bethune’’. Another sign high on the wall whose orange-red letters
shimmered against a black background proclaimed, “Your mind is your most
powerful resource’’. Signs with science words (physiology, botany, biology, ento-
mologist, veterinarian, paleontologist), suggestions for solving the mathematical
problem of the day, strategies for approaching unfamiliar words, and disposi-
tional states (self-confidence, perseverance, confidence) took up every inch of
blank space. A life-size picture of a Black female police officer read: “Children,
it is illegal for second graders to read and skip over words they don’t under-
stand. Ask or look it up’’. A handwritten sign, “George Washington Carver
Botanical Gardens Outside’’, hung over the door leading out to the courtyard
where students had planted a garden in honor of this famous African American
scientist they had studied. Overhead, a large sheet of newsprint written in
hand-printed letters with the heading “personality words’’ listed about two-
dozen words such as shy, selfish, mischievous, brave, and anxious. Students’ cre-
ations adorned the walls and the ceiling. There was the usual student art work.
But there were unusual examples as well. One, a photograph of six students
 Michèle Foster

from the classroom, dressed in black, arms crossed, proclaimed, “Black

Panthers Red Hot Readers Power to the Reader’’. All available space on the
blackboard and the walls was filled with words and phrases — BOTANY IS
THE STUDY OF PLANTS; LITTLE CHILDREN CAN LEARN BIG WORDS:
flatulence, compassionate, iridescent, metacognition, and reciprocity.

. Reading, writing, and reasoning

Vivette’s students routinely participate in activities that are found in rich print
classrooms, particularly those that emphasize reading and writing for meaning
such as joining in paired and partnered readings and listening to chapter books
their teacher reads aloud. Students also participate in a writing workshop they
call The Writers’ Guild where they compose stories, read them aloud to their
peers who ask questions, revise them, and read the final drafts to their class-
mates. They also do mini-lessons on topics such as how to make corrections on
writing assignments, story starters, descriptive language, and devices for grab-
bing the audience’s attention — all staples in the classroom.
Students regularly use reading and writing to explore and connect with
their personal lives and experiences as well as with the cultures, experiences,
political struggles, and events — contemporaneous and historical — of their
communities. They read, discuss, and write about current events and other
matters pertinent to their classroom, local, state, and national communities.
They might write thank-you letters to community people who have visited
their class, usually on Fun Friday. Fun Friday is a Friday afternoon event in
which students participate in one or more special, novel activities, often related
to something they learned in the classroom or encountered in a story. For ex-
ample, one Fun Friday involved a barber, the father of one of the students,
talking about and demonstrating barbering. Earlier that week, students had
read the book Uncle Jed’s Barbershop and Vivette had sent home permission
slips for students to receive complimentary haircuts. After the barber/father
finished talking about his profession, students asked questions about the sci-
ence of haircutting and then several students received hair cuts.
Sometimes they write letters to voice their opinion or take a position on
issues that concern those in the class, especially issues affecting their local com-
munity. For example, once, when the city considered building a new mall in
the neighborhood, the students wrote to the mayor advocating the conservation
of trees and wildlife. Another time, after reading the superintendent’s statement
about school achievement, they wrote him a letter expressing their views.
 Pay leon, pay leon, pay leon paleontologist 

. Talking science

Encouraged to see themselves as scientists, students pose questions then try to

answer them by observation, sometimes to test community folk knowledge. For
example, Vivette wrote ALBINO on the board and asked the students if they
knew what the word meant. When no one answered, she explained what the
word meant, offering a general definition of having no color. She then passed
around an albino cricket as she talked about how she came to acquire the
cricket. Vivette told the first graders they would need to observe carefully to see
whether the toad would eat the albino cricket or the ordinary cricket first.
Later that day she asked, “How many of you have heard people say,
‘One rotten apple spoils the bunch’’’? Several students waved their hands and
a chorus of voices exclaimed, “I have’’. Using ripe apples and a spoiled one, the
children placed the spoiled fruit in the middle with all of the other apples
touching it. They spent the next few weeks observing to record any changes.

. Call-and-response: Data analysis

It is within this classroom context that call-and-response routines are used. In

two-and-a-half years, we have recorded approximately 100 instances of call-
and-response during our observations. While possible to analyze each call-and-
response turn, our focus has been on call-and-response sequences. Our data
suggest that these sequences vary along four dimensions — code, function, initi-
ator, and mode. Call-and-response sequences can be inter- or intra-code (i.e.,
constituted of a single code or of multiple codes). Call-and-response sequences
also vary according to their communicative function. Following Cazden (1988),
we used three communicative functions — expressing attitudes, expressing
identities, and conveying cognitive information. Because call-and-response is
so rooted in African American cultural practice and integral to African Ameri-
can communicative behavior, we argue that when enacted, call-and-response
functions as an expression of identity. Though call-and-response sequences
functioned as expressions of identity, they also served multiple and overlapping
functions.
Like most classroom interactions, call-and-response sequences were
typically initiated by the teacher; students, however, were permitted to and
sometimes initiated call-and-response (Mehan 1979). Call-and-response
sequences also vary according to the manner, way, or method in which they are
 Michèle Foster

performed (i.e., how scripted they are). Mode is a more complex and dynamic
dimension than it first seems. While some call-and-response sequences ap-
peared as highly scripted (i.e., well-rehearsed material performed repeatedly),
these characteristics are evident in later phases. In earlier phases, when the call-
and-response sequences first emerge, they are often highly creative, inventive,
and generative (a point I return to later in this chapter).
The teacher often invoked a call-and-response sequence to celebrate learn-
ing or commend someone for accomplishing a task. In these instances, call-
and-response consisted of energetic but highly scripted routines. Two ritual-
like routines were commonly used for this purpose. One took the form of a
salute, “You get down, baby!’’, chanted in unison by the class in response to the
teacher’s call, “What do we say’’? Another consisted of two lines from a popular
rhythm and blues song from the 1970s, “You Can Ring My Bell’’, by Anita
Ward, adapted for this purpose. The following example from our data illus-
trates how this routine was used.
(1) Three boys come into the classroom; one in the middle being sup-
ported by two boys on either side, is limping. The boys tell Vivette that
there was an accident on the playground. The boy who is limping an-
nounces, “I’m injured’’. Addressing the expanding group of children
who have come in from recess, Vivette smiles, her face brimming with
excitement, “He said injured and not hurt. Bring him over here and
let him ring the bell’’. Smiling, but still limping, the boy rings the rusty
bell sitting on the desk at the front of the classroom. Immediately after,
the pupils sing one chorus of Ring My Bell, a popular rhythm and
blues song recorded by Anita Ward from the 1970s. Children sway to
the music. “You can ring my be:::ll, ring my bell. You can ring my
be:::ll ring my bell’’. In a few minutes the music has stopped.
Analyzing this excerpt along the four dimensions — code, function, mode,
and initiator — reveals it consists of a verbal call and a musical response; it
expresses speakers’ attitudes by celebrating learning; it is highly scripted or
routinized; and it is initiated by the teacher. In other instances, however, partic-
ularly those where the function was non-cognitive, although not exclusively,
students initiated call-and-response sequences. When its purpose was cognitive,
call-and-response was used to facilitate pupils’ semantic development by in-
creasing their awareness of letters, syllables, spelling, and the meanings of
words. Thus, whether they were chanting the letters in words — G-I-R-L: girl
— or syllables of words — con-tain-er — or calling out words that fit the
 Pay leon, pay leon, pay leon paleontologist 

meaning of dramatized sentences — “You lost your coat. How do you feel?
You have to go home and tell your mom you lost your coat. How do you
feel’’? “Anxious’’ — students were becoming more aware of linguistic patterns
through call-and-response.
The pupils enjoyed composing songs accompanied by the latest dance
steps and performing them, which they often did. Rather than suppress these
activities, Vivette incorporated them into her classroom. For example, she
invited her first- and second-graders to create a song-and-dance number in
which they spelled and illustrated the meaning of the word ‘reciprocity’. In
keeping with her customary pedagogical practice, Vivette seized the opportu-
nity to help her first- and second-grade students learn the word when they
first encountered it. Running through the song and dance in which they
spelled the word ‘reciprocity’ rhythmically and then danced and sang lyrics
that illustrated the meaning — “I do for you and you do for me. I read to
you and you read to me. I write for you and you write for me. That is reci-
procity’’. — were several codes — verbal, musical, and dance. Students were
eager to perform the dance routine which they often did for parents and other
visitors to the classroom. In the second year, when some of students were
promoted and sent to a different class other than the one where they had com-
posed and performed the dance, on several occasions we were able to observe
what occurred when the word reciprocity was mentioned. Only students who
had created and choreographed the dance routine the previous year were able
to spell the word. Typically students raised their hands and tried spelling the
word without using the rhythmic contours of the song. After several failures,
students tried spelling the word using the rhythmic contours and were imme-
diately successful. Other students eagerly joined in the singing of the word and
this seemed to aid their retrieval of the information. And, the successful stu-
dent went on to provide multiple examples of the word’s meaning. The fol-
lowing example (2) from our field notes 24 March 1998 typifies how this in-
teraction unfolded in the classroom:

(2) T: Have you guys heard the term reciprocity (emphasis added)
S1: I can spell it [a Black boy waving his raised arm back and forth
using a loud voice; student 2 also a Black boy, raises his hand].
T: O.K, Vaughn.
S2: If I do something to you, you do something to me.
S1: I can spell it.
T: OK. Go ahead
 Michèle Foster

S1: R to the E to the C to the I to the P to the R to the O to the C to

the I to the T to the Y
(Teacher nods with approval.)
T: It means basically what goes around comes around.
S1: If I write a letter to you, you have to write one to me.
T: What about while we’re reading? If Ayana’s reading, you listen be-
cause Ayana will listen to you.
(Students join in singing reciprocity.)

If examined temporally, the dynamic nature of the mode of call-and-re-

sponse in (2) becomes evident. In the earlier phase, when pupils were creating
this call-and-response sequence, they drew on a much wider and more genera-
tive set of cognitive abilities than they did in later phases when the routine was
scripted and needed only to be rehearsed and performed.
As illustrated in Table 1 and (3), the final extended example of call-and-
response is similar to (1) on one dimension: it is teacher initiated. The example
in (3) also resembles (2) on the functional dimension. However, (3) diverges
from (1) and (2) on two dimensions: it is improvised and conveys cognitive
information. In (3), the teacher and a small group of pupils are seated around
a table. Each pupil has previously chosen a science word to spell for the class.
One student raises her hand, pronounces and then spells the word “entomolo-
gist’’. Another child tackles “physiologist’’; a third, “botanist’’. The following
sequence begins when, after several students have pronounced and spelled their
words, a student mispronounces the word “paleontologist’’.

(3) S: P A L E O N (saying each letter)

T: You forgot to say what it was.
S: Oh peolotoelogist
T: Peolotogist. He’s gonna study toes. pa le on to lo gist (saying
5 each syllable)
Ss: to lo gist
[Students murmur the last few syllables along with the teacher.]
T: How many sounds? How many sounds? How many sounds?
[Students continue murmuring as the teacher asks the question.]
10 Ss: Six
Ss: Six
T: Six OK. We know that. Pa le on Say it.
S: pa le on
T pa le on
15 S: pa le on
 Pay leon, pay leon, pay leon paleontologist 

T Say it again
S: pa le on, pa le un on pa
T: You guys help him out
Ss: pa le on
20 T: No, no, no, no, not loud, We’re going to say it slowly. We’re only
saying the first three sounds.
T/Ss: pa le on
T: You know like if you owe Leon some money. And you say, “I’m
‘on pay Leon’’.
25 S: Pay Leon
T: Pay Leon.
S: Pay Leon.
T: Pay Leon, everybody.
Ss: Pay Leon
30 T: Softly
Ss: Pay Leon (soft voices)
T: Softer.
Ss: Pay Leon (very soft voices)
T: Louder
35 Ss: Pay Leon (loud voices)
T: (Snaps fingers and waves hand around in a circle to signal the
students to say the phrase)
Ss: Pay Leon.
T: (Snaps fingers and waves hand around in a circle to signal the
40 students to say the phrase)
Ss: Pay Leon
T: (Snaps fingers and waves hand around in a circle to signal the
students to say the phrase)
Ss: Pay Leon
45 T: OK. That’s paleon to lo gist
Ss: to lo gist
T: You can say that fast. Now say the whole thing
S: Paleontologist
T: Hey boy. Give me five. (All of the children slap their hands with
50 the other students.)

The transcript in (3) is an elegant example of how the teacher helps stu-
dents connect familiar linguistic patterns to newer patterns by using familiar
intonation patterns and varying them. After quickly determining that the stu-
dent is having difficulty with the first three syllables of “paleontologist’’, the
 Michèle Foster

Table 1: Four dimensions of call-and-response sequences for (1), (2), and (3)
Code call Function Initiator Mode
Response
Example 1 Verbal Express attitude Teacher Scripted
Musical Express identity
Non-verbal
Example 2 Verbal Convey cognitive information Students Improvised-phase 1
Scripted-phase 2
Verbal Express identity
Example 3 Verbal Convey cognitive information Teacher Improvised
Non-verbal
Verbal Express identity

teacher first focuses on trying to help the student pronounce the first three
syllables. In line 5, she pronounces the word slowly, stressing each syllable, and
quickly confirms that the students know the number of “sounds’’. Several times
(lines 12, 14, and 16) she calls for a response, but the students do not respond
chorally. Finally, in line 18, she calls for a group response (“help him out’’). In
line 21, the teacher re-focuses the students’ attention on the first three syllables;
then in line 22 the choral response begins. In lines 23 and 24, the teacher makes
a proposition and then, by manipulating the stress patterns, transforms the first
three syllables into a familiar phrase, “Pay Leon’’. This triggers nine call-and-
response turns — some spoken softly, some loudly, and others rhythmically to
hand claps and finger snaps, but each time pronounced so that the intonation,
rhythm, and stress clearly convey the phrase’s meaning. Almost imperceptibly
in line 46, the teacher modulates the intonational contour until it corresponds
to the first syllables of the word “paleontologist’’. The call-and-response se-
quence ends when in line 48 the pupil is able to pronounce the word correctly.
Interactions such as in (3) focus attention on the language forms them-
selves as opposed to the meanings so that children can develop metalinguistic
awareness that is, in turn, critical for developing competence in reading and
writing. Language play is one context in which such awareness can be devel-
oped (Cazden 1974). In this example, phonemic awareness and vocabulary
development — skills and abilities that recent analyses of reading have argued
predict reading achievement in children — are yoked (Snow/Burns/Griffin
1998). It is possible to hypothesize that, in this instance, the process is hastened
because students are developing their awareness within nested contexts of
meaning, familiar linguistic routines, and language play.
 Pay leon, pay leon, pay leon paleontologist 

. Educational implications

To the question raised earlier by Cazden (1999: 39) — “What are useful roles
for a secular classroom adaptation of this call-response discourse mode that
derives originally from sacred tradition’’? — this analysis offers some warnings
and some guidance. One caution is that without sustained classroom observa-
tion, the complexity, intricacy, and multifaceted dimensions of any interaction,
including the communicative patterns of call-and-response, may remain unde-
tected. Several things seem to distinguish the examples of call-and-response
presented in this chapter from others reported in the previous literature. First,
the analysis of call-and-response herein focuses on the multiple uses and modes
of the communication. Through these analytic foci, attention is fixed on exam-
ples of call-and-response that are dynamic, timely, and authentic — all central
tenets of sociocultural approaches to instruction (i.e., determining what chil-
dren already know and facilitating the integration of new information or skills
into their existing knowledge structures). In this classroom, the teacher medi-
ates between the children’s everyday worlds — their linguistic and cultural
worlds as well as their curricular world — by drawing on social, cultural, and
linguistic factors and then using this knowledge to help students become
skillful and adept at handling new vocabulary words. At the same time that the
teacher honored and drew upon students’ indigenous linguistic abilities, she
juxtaposed these abilities with other linguistic forms that she helped the stu-
dents appreciate and learn. This included patterns of discourse that invited
students to articulate a deeper understanding by talking aloud about the pro-
cess of problem solving or decision-making — practices that may not have
been part of their habitual or preferred repertoire.
As far as the debate within the academic community over the role that call-
and-response — a set of discourse features that can include prosodic character-
istics (e.g., variation in pitch, intonation, pace, volume, stress, and vowel
length) as well as rhetorical characteristics (e.g., repetition, repetition with vari-
ation, alliteration, and use of metaphor) — can play in helping African Ameri-
can students achieve the higher levels of literacy demanded in today’s class-
rooms (Cazden 1999; Meier 1999), it is not possible based on this analysis to
answer this question definitively. Nonetheless, the importance of prosody in
teaching African American students has been under-emphasized in scholarly
analyses and under-utilized in classrooms. Previous research, though limited,
has convinced me of the positive effect that rhythm, recitation, and repetition
can have on the learning, enthusiasm, motivation, and engagement of African
 Michèle Foster

American students. The current data analyzed herein strengthens this finding
even further. If I were to make recommendations about using call-and-re-
sponse in classrooms, it would be for teachers who undertake employing this
communicative practice to use it in relevant and authentic situations.
More difficult to answer is how to assist other teachers who may not al-
ready possess the linguistic and cultural knowledge that Vivette does to acquire
sufficient and appropriate knowledge about African American discourse fea-
tures in order to incorporate them into classroom instruction in a relevant
manner instead of in artificial and stilted ways. For two years I have studied a
professional development program designed to expose teachers to information
about the language and culture of African Americans in order to understand
how they translated that information into curricula, classroom practice, and
pedagogy and the effect, if any, that this changed practice had on students’
academic achievement, particularly those achieving in the lowest quartile on
standardized achievement tests. Two of our main findings were that teachers
utilized their knowledge of African American English when using contrastive
analysis to teach students the differences between General American English
and African American English but when they used call-and-response, it was in
contrived situations to teach spelling words or number facts. Consequently, if
the professional development program that we studied is typical, I am not
hopeful. Asking teachers to do what Vivette is able to do, moreover, might be
too much to ask. What we can strive for and what we have not yet accom-
plished after more than 30 years of research on the topic of African American
English is convincing most teachers as well as the larger society (if the most
recent flap over Ebonics is any gauge) that children who speak African Ameri-
can English are using language in systemic, rule-governed ways. As long as
teachers and, I might add, researchers assume a narrow view of African Ameri-
can English, regarding it primarily as phonology and syntax instead of as a
whole language system (which includes semantics, pragmatics, prosody,
rhythm, repetition, etc.) imbued with and embedded in social meaning, its
potential usefulness as well as its multiple dimensions will go unrecognized.

Notes
. This work is supported under the Educational Research and Development Center Pro-
gram (Coop. Agreement No. R306A6001–96), administered by the Office of Educational
Research and Improvement (OERI), U. S. Department of Education. The findings and
opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect the position or policies of OERI.
 Pay leon, pay leon, pay leon paleontologist 

. Special thanks to Courtney Cazden and Jeanne Russell for their comments on earlier
drafts of this article.
. The Cureton Reading Program authored by George Cureton, for example, was a struc-
tured phonics program published and used widely in the early 1970s by Allyn Bacon. It
is no longer in print.
. Transcription Key: : vowel elongation; :: vowel elongation (longer); :::vowel elongation
(even longer)

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 Chapter 12

Applying our knowledge of African

American English to the problem
of raising reading levels in inner-city schools

William Labov
University of Pennsylvania

The research reported here concerns the application of our knowledge of

African American English to the teaching of reading.1 It bears upon the prog-
ress of efforts to solve one of the most serious social problems of the United
States: the failure of the school system to teach reading to children in the inner
city. It also bears on the long-standing question of the relation of theory to
practice, and the relation of applied linguistics to theoretical linguistics. The
term ‘‘applied linguistics’’ subtends the general understanding that it is an ef-
fort to apply our knowledge of language to a problem that exists outside of the
field of linguistics. It is necessarily then a secondary activity, which can succeed
only if the theory to be applied is correct. Although this is the general direction
that I would follow here, one immediate correction is needed. A theory can be
confirmed by the success or the failure of an application.
In what follows, it will appear that the linguistic theory bears upon the
relative success or failure of efforts to improve reading in different areas of the
linguistic system. Given the complexity of English orthographic structure, there
are many areas of comparison within the system that create opportunities for
controlled experiments. Controlled experiments are designed as efforts to
change one part of the world while keeping another part constant or un-
changed. Success or failure in that effort is the crucial test of the theory. It will
be argued here that linguistics that begins with observation is incomplete with-
out experiment. In this view, linguistics is properly an attempt to change the
world, and our success or failure in that effort is the main way — perhaps the
only way — to attain valid knowledge of the world, to find out what the world
is really like.
 William Labov

The first research on African American Vernacular English (AAVE) that I

was involved in took place in South Harlem in the late 1960s (Labov/Cohen/
Robins 1965 and Labov/Cohen/Robins/Lewis 1968). It was funded by the Office
of Education with the object of finding out whether the extensive reading fail-
ure in inner-city schools was connected with differences between the home
language of the children and ‘‘standard’’ English of the school. One of the main
results of that work was the discovery of extensive and systematic differences.
The first study of the internal, structural constraints on linguistic variation was
the analysis of -t, d deletion (Labov/Cohen/Robins/Lewis 1968, Vol. 1). It was
found that the frequency of deletion of the final /t/ or /d/ was inversely related
to the sonority of the following segment, the stress of the syllable, and the
depth of the grammatical boundary preceding it (Wolfram 1969; Fasold 1972;
Baugh 1983). Further research showed that most of these and other constraints
on consonant cluster simplification were general to all speakers of English
(Labov 1972 and Guy 1980).
Guy’s continuing development of this work in Philadelphia (1981)
showed us that African Americans differed from Whites not only in higher
rates of deletion, but in the high probabilities of deletion in final or citation
position. These differences did not imply that AAVE differed from other dia-
lects in the nature of the underlying forms involved. Linguistic arguments
convinced us that the underlying forms of most words like test, told, and
passed included a final /t/ or /d/ in AAVE. The following types of evidence led
to this conclusion:
• the existence of phonological conditioning, which implies the variable re-
duction of a pre-existing phonological form rather than the variable inser-
tion of a phoneme where none existed;
• the absence of hypercorrection, which implies a firm knowledge of the
underlying forms; and
• the uniformity of the variable patterns in the population, which is rarely
the case with variable insertion.
Guy (1991) has demonstrated that coronal stop deletion cannot be derived by
constraints on surface structure but is the product of a series of derivational
processes that are responsible for the exponential relation between mono-
morphemic, semi-weak, and past tense clusters. More recently, Guy (2000)
developed this view further by showing that exceptional lexical items like and
undergo the same constraints as the main body of words.
All of these considerations strengthen the inference that the coronal stops
 AAE and reading levels in inner-city schools 

are present in the underlying forms of speakers of AAVE, no matter how low
the frequency of realization. Nevertheless, our research on reading indicated
that speakers of AAVE did not have the ability to extract the meaning of the -ed
past tense marker on the printed page. Given a test sentence like
(1) Last month I read five books.
a competent reader can transfer the meaning of the adverbial phrase Last month
to the past tense pronunciation of the unique homograph read. The Harlem
youth who attained grade five level in reading were able to do this. In the
sentence
(2) When I passed by I read the sign.

the pronunciation of read shows whether the reader derived the past tense
meaning from the suffix -ed, whether or not it was pronounced. The South
Harlem readers at any reading grade level gave responses at a chance level for
this type (Labov 1970). This raises the possibility that high frequencies of
deletion may make it more difficult to access underlying forms in decoding
printed text.
Our linguistic theory is soundly based on large-scale observations of the
spontaneous production of speech in every-day life. Its validity ultimately rests
upon inferences about invisible objects: the underlying forms that speakers
begin with as well as the rules and constraints that produce the surface forms
we observe. Clearly the inferences about underlying structure bear upon the
beginning reader’s ability to relate the printed form to words in their active
vocabulary. Differences in the surface realization of words in spontaneous
speech and orthographic forms are most striking in consonant clusters. Infer-
ences about the underlying forms of consonant clusters are an important part
of the knowledge that we would like to apply to raise reading levels.
In general, efforts to apply this knowledge to the teaching of reading so
far have not been successful. The gap between reading achievement of Euro-
Americans and African Americans is persistent and profound. Table 1 is taken
from the most recent figures published by the National Assessment of Educa-
tional Progress (NAEP). For 9-year olds, the group of elementary school read-
ers centrally involved in the research to be reported below, the differential
between Black and White is remarkably stable. Since 1980, mean reading lev-
els for Blacks have remained about 35 points lower than Whites; and this
difference represents the difference between functioning and non-functioning
readers.
 William Labov

Table 1. Average NAEP reading scale scores by race for 9-year olds, 1971–1999
Year 1971 1975 1980 1984 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1999
White 214 217 221 218 218 217 218 218 220 221
Black 170 191 189 186 189 182 185 185 191 186
Difference 44 26 32 32 29 35 33 33 29 35

Very few people who do not work in inner-city schools realize how bad the
state of reading is. Figure 1 shows the characteristic differential between the
Philadelphia school system as a whole and schools with a population close to
100% African American. The top two bars show the percent in the lowest six-
teenth percentile for Birney Elementary and all other elementary schools —
31% vs. 22% — and how the situation worsens from middle school to high
school. In Franklin High School, 75% of the students are in the lowest sixteenth
percentile, almost twice as high a proportion as for all high schools. This differ-
ential is even more striking when we consider reading levels of Philadelphia
schools as a whole are very low. In 1997, 141 of the 156 Philadelphia schools
were in the bottom quintile of the state (Philadelphia Inquirer, 25 July 1976),
and 14 were in the second lowest quintile. In the West Philadelphia schools
where we are now working, the majority of children arrive at the fifth grade so
far behind in reading grade level that they cannot use reading for any useful
purpose, and their educational future is grim indeed.
This report draws on efforts to raise reading levels in West Philadelphia and
Oakland that I began three years ago in collaboration with colleagues at Cali-
fornia State Hayward and the Oakland School Board. The linguistic component
of the project, centered at the Linguistics Laboratory of the University of

Birney Elementary
All elementary

Cooke Junior High

All Junior High

Franklin High School

All high schools
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Figure 1. Percent in lowest sixteenth percentile in California Achievement
Test reading scores for the Philadelphia School District, 1976
 AAE and reading levels in inner-city schools 

Pennsylvania, is concerned with children in the second to fifth grades who are
one to two years behind in reading grade level. The immediate goal is to teach
them accurate and automatic decoding of words that are in their active vocabu-
lary so that they can use their normal language skills to understand, process,
and reply to questions about the texts.
Many linguists believe, for good reasons, that linguistics is not relevant to
reading research. There is no reason to believe that we have an innate capacity
to interpret alphabetic writing and there is no doubt that acquisition of reading
requires far more meta-cognitive awareness than the acquisition of speech. At
the same time, we can observe that the rules that relate English sounds to
English letters have all the properties of the most elegant rules or constraints
that we write in phonology. A good example is the silent -e rule, which may be
broken down into three components:
(3) Given a word with the structure: C-V-C-(e)
a. The final -e is never pronounced.
[exceptions: adobe, anemone, Nike]
b. If the -e is absent, the vowel is never long.
[exceptions: there are no exceptions]
c. If the -e is present, the vowel is long.
[exceptions: before -m, -n: come, some, one, done . . .
before -v: shove, love, dove, glove, above, prove, move . . .]
In our current work in Philadelphia, we find that children in the second, third,
fourth and fifth grades do not know this rule. Given a sentence,

(4) He didn’t take a little bit; he took a big bite

they are likely to read bit as bite or bite as bit. We took the silent -e rule as a test
case to see if children one to two years behind in reading were in fact
cognitively impaired or had the capacity to learn and use general rules of this
type. At the same time, such a focus brings to the fore the fact that there is no
relation between the silent -e rule and the dialect differences that have moti-
vated us to apply our knowledge of AAVE to the improvement of reading. As
we studied the reading problem, it became increasingly evident that there were
many problems of graphemic/phonemic relationships that were independent
of dialect differences. The primary task was to apply our conception of linguis-
tic structure to the decoding problem of young children.
A review of reading research as well as the phonics programs currently in
use shows very few contributions from a linguistic perspective. The work of
 William Labov

educational psychologists is not immediately governed by the fact that we are

dealing with a specific problem of the English language and the historical devel-
opment of its relation of sound to spelling. To the best of my knowledge, the
elements (a–c) of the silent -e rule are never discussed or analyzed in the litera-
ture. The first sub-rule is an orthographic fact that reflects the historical loss of
final unstressed e from the language. The second and third sub-rules embody
the fundamental conception of language as a set of contrastive oppositions.
From a linguistic point of view, it is not enough to tell children that the i in bit
is short; it is also essential that they understand that it cannot be long. Simi-
larly, one must convey to the reader that the i in bite cannot be short (given the
fact that it is not in the exceptional classes followed by v, m, or n). Whether this
information is conveyed by inference or direct instruction, the notion of long
and short vowels as a contrastive opposition is essential for efficient decoding.
However, the children we have been dealing with have not absorbed this notion
after three, four, or five years of reading instruction — and we have no reason
to think that it has ever been a part of their program.
The difficulty is further compounded by the fact that very few people in
reading will appreciate the linguistic view that the problem of reading is the
problem of decoding. Linguists as a whole believe that children come to school
in possession of the English language. It follows that if they can learn to decode
rapidly and fluently the words on the page that correspond to the English
words they already know, they can then go on to apply the same knowledge of
language that they use in speaking and answering. This is not the end of the
educational problem: there is an enormous amount to be done in increasing
vocabulary size; learning to remember what was said or written; summarizing
ideas; seizing main points, subjects, and topics; etc. But these problems exist for
oral communication as well as written, and they are not peculiar to reading.
Our task in West Philadelphia, then, is to teach the children to recognize on the
printed page the words they already know.
We begin with a linguistic analysis of reading errors. Figure 2 is based on
a collection of reading errors made in West Philadelphia schools by children
reading a variety of books. For each error, we analyze which element of syllable
structure is responsible. This figure shows errors in onset consonants. We dis-
covered that contrary to the general opinion, the problem is not on teaching
these children to master the alphabetic principle. These struggling readers know
the alphabet almost perfectly. Single initial consonants are recognized correctly
96% of the time. But any increase in the complexity of the onset produces a
sharp rise in errors, reaching 80% for three consonant onsets. This includes
 AAE and reading levels in inner-city schools 

90
80
70
60
R/L transfer
50 L/R transfer
40 Inverse errors
Percent errors
30
20
10
0
First Soft c Digraph sC cluster Cr/l sCr
consonant cluster cluster
Figure 2. Percent reading errors in onsets by structure, Davis School, grades
2–5, Spring 1998 [N=617]

inverse errors, where clusters are supplied that are not in print, and transfers
of /r/ and /l/ to the wrong side of the nucleus.
Figure 3 is the corresponding view of errors in decoding syllable nuclei.
Again, simple nuclei are easily recognized, but any increase in complexity of the
nucleus produces more than 50% errors, and the silent -e structure is the worst.

120
Exceptions
Inverse errors
100 Percent errors
80

60

40

20

0
First Initial Silent e Double r- Bisyllabic Unstressed
vowel vowel vowel controlled shorten- vowel
vowel ing

Figure 3. Percent reading errors in nuclei by structure,

Davis School, grades 2–5, Spring 1998 [N=860]
 William Labov

Figure 4 shows the distribution of reading errors in syllable codas. Here

again is the expected rise in error rates from single letters and segments to
complex clusters. But there is an additional feature that points strongly towards
the influence of the spoken language. There is no orthographic reason why final
apical clusters like -nd and -st should be read wrong more often than
non-apical clusters like -ng and -nk. But the rates of reading errors are very
different, and the only explanation that we can point to is that the high rate of
deletion of apical clusters points towards the influence of the mismatch
between the spoken form and the printed form.
This one indication was hardly enough to demonstrate that dialect differ-
ences were the key to the reading problem. The onset, the nucleus, and the
coda show the same overall pattern. This is a surprising finding if one ap-
proaches the problem with the view that the chief difficulty lies in the area of
dialect differences. There are a few differences in initial consonant structure
between AAVE and other dialects, but nowhere near the extent of differences
in codas. Yet we find the same pattern of inability to deal with complex syllable
structures. Our major efforts then went into designing an approach to teaching
reading that addressed the error profiles of Figures 2-4 without special atten-
tion to dialect differences. The narratives, illustrations, and cultural stance in
our reading methods are heavily informed by African American culture and
African American speech events, but that is not the aspect of the program that
is the focus here.

120
Exceptions
Inverse errors
100 Percent errors
80

60

40

20

0
First Initial Silent e Double r- Bisyllabic Unstressed
vowel vowel vowel controlled shorten- vowel
vowel ing

Figure 4. Percent reading errors in codas by structure,

Davis School, grades 2–5, Spring 1998 [N=860]
 AAE and reading levels in inner-city schools 

This program trained tutors in the America Reads program and students
in University of Pennsylvania classes in the use of an Individualized Reading
Manual (IRM) constructed to teach reading to inner-city struggling readers.
Our method involved direct instruction on the ways in which letters of the
alphabet combine to signal the sounds of English, but always in a meaningful
context. Isolated words and nonsense syllables are rarely encountered. Although
the main purpose of the program is to raise decoding skills, it is consistent with
a whole language approach in that all reading is meaningful activity.
The IRM begins with a diagnostic reading in which all of the problem
structures shown in Figures 2-4 are represented. As the student reads aloud,
tutors record every utterance that does not plainly show correct decoding of the
text. These are entered into the RX program, which analyzes the error in rela-
tion to which orthographic structure has been misread and develops a reading
error profile such as Figure 5. This shows the pattern for Alena K., a 9-year-old
fourth grader from the Davis School, rated by the school at reading grade 2.2.
level by the Informal Reading Inventory that teachers use. She was a member
of an extended-day program that began in October 1999 and extended to June
2000. The distribution of reading errors follows the same general pattern found
in the initial study of reading errors in Figures 2–4. Nevertheless, there are
always individual differences in decoding skills, even with children who are
rated by the schools at the same reading grade level. On the basis of these indi-
vidual patterns, the RX program develops a plan for the initiating point and
sequence of lessons in the Individualized Reading Manual to be taught.
Figure 5 shows that Tiffany H. does not need Section 2, which deals with indi-
vidual consonants and vowels in a CVC framework, but she does need help
with silent -e, where she makes errors 50% of the time. Her choice of long and
short vowels in the CVCe context is random.
Two sections of the IRM are devoted to silent -e. Section 4 deals with the
regular patterns, while Section 5 deals with the sub-regularities that occur be-
fore nasals and the voiced labial fricative. The central narrative of Section 4 is
Dealing with Zeke. It has a heavy concentration of silent -e words, like Zeke. The
substance of the narrative deals with the problem of violence in school — and
how people can maintain their self respect, and defend themselves against ag-
gressive behavior, without coming into conflict with the rules and expectations
of family and school. In the key sentence of the narrative, the narrator responds
to Zeke’s moves with the key sentence ‘‘This is not the time, this is not the
place’’. The problem is eventually sorted out at a more appropriate time and
place. Like all the stories of the IRM, the vocabulary is controlled to include
 William Labov

100

80
Error (%)

60

40

20

0
C_ V_ Ch_ CL_ sC_ XC_ sCL_ V VVr VV] VCe VR _C _CiC _Ch
Onset Nucleus Coda
100

80
Error (%)

60

40

20

0
_ck _LC _sC _Cs _CC _CCC Pl Pos 3S _ed Cop Con ing at Sy12
Coda Inflections
Figure 5. Pre-intervention reading error profile for Alena K., 9, grade 4, Davis
School, with Below Basic II reading level

those structures that have already been mastered along with a heavy concentra-
tion of the vowel and consonant patterns that are the focus of the section.
Figure 5 also shows that Alena K. needs serious help with consonant
clusters. Her reading of single consonants, syllable initial or final, is practically
perfect, but over half the time she reads consonant clusters wrong. Our
approach to this topic follows the suggestion that came initially from our work
in Harlem (Labov 1965, 1995), that in reading instruction more attention has
to be paid to the ends of words, where differences between AAVE and written
English is maximal. Table 2 shows a typical distribution of effort in a phonics
manual, in this case the Steck-Vaughn program used in Tiffany’s school. In this
program, 28 lessons are devoted to the teaching of isolated letters, 69 are
devoted to initial consonants, but only 22 to final consonants, and very little
 AAE and reading levels in inner-city schools 

attention is given to clusters, here called ‘‘blends’’. Section 6 of the IRM, on the
other hand, gives equal attention to initial and final clusters. The initial cluster
st- is introduced at the same time as the final cluster -st. The initial pl- is taught
together with the -lp in help. The central narrative is Ghosts in the Basement. It
concerns a theme common to many children — a dark part of the house that
they are afraid to go into — in this case, the basement. It is told by a boy whose
big sister gets him to go down into the basement where he is convinced he sees
a gray ghost hanging on the wall. But his sister says, ‘‘That’s no ghost. That’s
a wasp’s nest’’. The direct instruction in this system and the practice words
direct the reader’s attention to the surface structure of the written represen-
tation, focusing attention on the location and number of consonants in each
word because, to be frank, we did not have a linguistic story about initial

Table 2. Topics of lessons for year 1 of Steck-Vaughn phonics series

Pages Letter Consonants
recognition
Initial Medial/Final Blends Digraphs
0- 10
1– 10
2– 8 2
3– 7 2
4– 4
5– 10 1
6– 4 2
7– 6 1
8– 5 2
9– 4
10– 8 1
11– 6
12– 5
13– 4 3
14– 4 4
15– 6
16–
17–
18–
19–
20– 2
21– 10
22– 10
23– 8
Total 28 69 22 12 18
 William Labov

clusters: we didn’t have a linguistic explanation as to why they read stick for sick
or pay for play.
Figure 6 is the reading error profile for Alena K. after 22 half hours of in-
struction — a typical number for the extended-day program. It shows the pro-
file of errors in reading Ray and His Cat Come Down. This is a post-intervention
diagnostic that has the same theme, the same characters, and the same range of
syllable structures to be decoded as the initial diagnostic, Ray and His Cat Come
Back. The massive reduction in error rates in Figure 6 is not particular to Alena
K.: it is typical of the great majority of the students. Silent -e errors dropped
from 69% to 4%. Combining all initial clusters together, Alena shifted from 77%
to 3% errors. However, Figure 6 shows many errors remaining in decoding final
clusters. Alena K. began with an error rate for final consonant clusters of 77%

100

80
Error (%)

60

40

20

0
C_ V_ Ch_ CL_ sC_ XC_ sCL_ V VVr VVl VCe VR _C _CiC _Ch
Onset Nucleus Coda
100

80
Error (%)

60

40

20

0
_ck _LC _sC _Cs _CC _CCC Pl Pos 3S _ed Cop Con ing at Sy12
Coda Inflections
Figure 6. Post-intervention reading error profile for Alena K., 9, grade 4, Davis
School, with Below Basic II reading level
 AAE and reading levels in inner-city schools 

— exactly the same as for initial clusters — but instead of falling to 3%, her
combined error rate for final consonant clusters was 30%. In fact, it appears that
Alena K. did far better with final consonant clusters than most.
Figure 7 is a scattergram that plots the result of intervention for all 52 stu-
dents in the Davis and Woodruff extended-day programs. The pre-intervention
error rates are shown on the horizontal axis, and post-intervention scores on
the vertical axis. Each diamond registers the mean pre-intervention and post-
intervention scores for an element of syllable structure. Any point below the
diagonal indicates an improvement, where post-test errors are lower than pre-
test errors. The solid diamonds represent significant improvement. On the
extreme right are those structures that showed the highest error rates initially.
Words with silent letters — wrap, knee, right, etc. — which had a significant
but limited improvement of 50% over the initial error rate of 27%. The com-
bined means for initial clusters begin at the same initial mean error rate of
27%, but drop much further, to 7%, a 75% improvement. Irregular vowel pairs

0.30

0.25

0.20
Final
clusters
0.15
Silent letters

0.10 Final Irregular Initial

geminates V-pairs clusters
Final
0.05 digraphs
Vowel + /r/
V
C_ _C Silent e
Regular V-pairs
0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3
Pre-test
Figure 7. Pre- and poat-test reading errors by structure for
extended-day program at Davis and Woodruff Schools, 1999–2000
[N=52]. Significance of t-test of differences between pre-test and
post-test: solid symbols, p < .00001; empty symbols, n.s.
 William Labov

show a moderate improvement, but silent -e errors have all but disappeared
and regular vowel pairs are practically perfect, moving from 15% errors to 1%.
We were pleased with these results, a massive change in reading skills for
students whose reading problems had remained stable for years. But one ele-
ment remains on the diagonal, indicating no improvement: final consonant
clusters. Despite the fact that our Section 6 gave equal attention to final and
initial clusters, and despite the fact that the same amount of instruction was
given for both, the error rate for final clusters remained intact. We were more
than surprised at this result.
Figure 8 is a comparable diagram of the combined results of two extended-
day programs during the summer of 2000 at two schools, Davis and Halleck,
involving 44 students. For this summer program, instructional time was much
shorter — on the average one half as long as that of the year-long program. The
same pattern repeats for the different elements of syllable structure: initial clus-

0.40

0.35

0.30

0.25

0.20
Final Silent letters
clusters
0.15
Initial
Final Irregular clusters
0.10 geminates V-pairs
Ch Vowel + /r/ Silent e
0.05 V
C_ _C Regular V-pairs
0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25 0.3 0.35
Pre-test
Figure 8. Pre- and poat-test reading errors by structure for
extended-day program at Davis and Halleck Schools, Summer
2000 [N=44]. Significance of t-test of differences between pre-test
and post-test: solid symbols, p < .00001; grey symbols, p < .05,
empty symbols, n.s.
 AAE and reading levels in inner-city schools 

ters, silent -e, and regular vowel pairs all show dramatic improvement; irregular
vowel pairs only show moderate improvement. Final clusters are actually above
the diagram. Though they started at a relatively low error rate of 8%, they
moved up to 15%. Again, they proved impervious to instruction though the
same methods gave a 67% improvement in initial clusters.
Figure 9 is a scattergram plotting the differences in pre- and post-interven-
tion error rates for individual students in the year-long, Davis/Woodruff pro-
gram. The horizontal axis represents the number of half-hours of instructional
time; the vertical axis the difference between error rates for the initial diagnos-
tic reading and the final diagnostic reading — that is, the amount of improve-
ment. The upper diagram shows that almost all subjects showed improvement,
and the amount of improvement was significantly correlated with the amount
of instruction. The bottom diagram shows the radically different situation for
final consonant clusters. The symbols are equally distributed above and below
the 0 line and there is a flat regression line at exactly zero.

0.8
0.6
0.4
CC_d

0.2
0.0
–0.2
–0.4
–0.6
10 20 30 40
Half-hours (initial clusters)
0.8
0.6
0.4
_CC.d

0.2
0.0
–0.2
–0.4
–0.6
10 20 30 40
Half-hours (²nal clusters)
Figure 9. Individual differences in errors for consonant
clusters before and after intervention for Davis and Woodruff
extended-day programs, 1999–2000 [N=52]. Regression
coefficient for initial clusters: .013 [p < .0001].
 William Labov

Figure 10 summarizes the situation with two histograms showing pre- and
post-test differences for initial clusters above and final clusters below. For ini-
tial clusters, the great majority of students showed positive improvement, as
indicated by the solid bars. But for final clusters, the majority of students
showed no significant change at all. A total of 17 speakers are concentrated at
the modal value of 0 difference.
This is not a success story, though we are greatly encouraged by the effects
of the IRM on the whole. It is about failure, and what we can learn from it. The
resistance of the final clusters to the methods we have used so far is the first
finding that demonstrates clearly that the grammar of AAVE has to be taken
into account in teaching reading to African American children. Since our work
so far has been largely with African American students, this conclusion does
not bear upon differences between the AAVE treatment of consonant clusters
and that of other dialects. Many studies indicate that the rate of consonant
cluster simplification in AAVE is higher and that the critical final position

8
Initial clusters
6

0
–0.07 0.18 0.43 0.68

20

Final clusters
15

10

0
–0.70 –0.45 –0.20 0.05 0.30 0.55
Figure 10. Differences in pre- and post-intervention
error rates for initial and final clusters. Solid bars
denote positive result.
 AAE and reading levels in inner-city schools 

favors final consonant deletion far more than with other dialects (Labov et al.
1968 and Guy 1981). We can infer that the decoding of final consonant clusters
is more difficult for speakers of AAVE than for other dialects, but conclusions
in this area must await the completion of comparative studies of reading errors
across ethnic groups. Without making such comparisons, the information we
now have about AAVE is enough to direct our attention to the speech patterns
of inner-city children and the texts they must decipher.
Recent work on consonant clusters has demonstrated that the regularities
we observe in speech are the result of a complex derivational process that re-
lates abstract forms to surface forms with radically different phonetic structure
(Guy 1991, 2000). In order to teach reading effectively to African American
struggling readers, we have to put ourselves in the situation of speakers who do
not realize the t in test often enough to recognize its existence when they see it
on the printed page. Our educational program must give them the evidence to
bring to the fore the existence of this underlying phoneme. The methods we are
now developing begin with vowel-initial inflectional forms like testing and
tested where the underlying /t/ is almost always realized. We then move to
forms that illustrate post-lexical constraints on deletion, like test of reading,
where the underlying /t/ may be realized at least a third of the time. For -ft
clusters, we will present the evidence of lefty, left off before returning to left turn
and turn left.
Since 1974, the field of reading instruction has benefited from attention to
children’s degree of phonemic awareness — the meta-linguistic ability to identify
the phonemic composition of words and syllables (Liberman et al. 1974 and
Shankweiler/Liberman 1989). The reading researchers who have explored chil-
dren’s developing ability in this area have not had occasion to study situations
where the phonemes are rarely realized in speech but must be inferred from
morphophonemic alternations.2 The program we are now engaged in must go
beyond phonemic awareness to develop the more abstract morphophonemic
awareness. We will not attempt to get children to hear a phoneme /t/ in ghosts
or a /p/ in wasps nest, but we will develop the recognition of the abstract rule
that hides the inaudible — and invisible — stops in ghosts, wasps, desks. This is
consistent with the genius of the English spelling system, which as we know is
essentially morphophonemic, maintaining the same spelling for forms with the
same meaning rather than forms with the same sound categories. The implica-
tions of this morphophonemic system have never been clear until we encounter
a system like African American Vernacular English, where the relation between
sound and spelling is more abstract than that for other dialects.
 William Labov

The techniques we have used so far have succeeded in raising most of the
children’s reading levels to the Basic level that is required by the school system.
However, few have reached the Advanced or Proficient level that implies fast
and fluent reading. The ability to decode final clusters appears to be essential
for that further step. It also implies developing a stronger control over the
representation of ‘‘standard’’ English grammar in both speech and writing.
Further work in this direction will build upon our knowledge of the structure
of African American Vernacular English in greater detail.

Notes
. The research reported here is from the linguistic component of the project on ‘‘African
American Literacy and Culture’’ supported by OERI from 1998 to 2000, in collaboration
with California State University Hayward and the Oakland Unified School Board. The
Individualized Reading Program described here is the work of myself and Bettina Baker,
who is the creator of the extended time programs that are the basis of the interventions
in Philadelphia elementary schools. We are greatly indebted to the many America Reads
tutors from the University of Pennsylvania who carried out this work, and to the students
in academically-based service learning classes who contributed to the construction of
teaching materials as well as the tutoring program.
. The complex vocabulary that is the basis for most such alternations in the literature
(Chomsky/Halle 1968) is not available to beginning readers. Thus the alternation design
~ designation gives a mature reader the basis for inferring the existence of an underlying
/g/ in design, but this remains an orthographic irregularity for elementary school children.
However, struggling readers in the inner city are in a position to take advantage of the
very large numbers of alternations in everyday speech like tes’ ~ testing, ol’ ~ older to infer
the existence of underlying /t/ in test and /d/ in old.

References

Baugh, John. 1983. Black Street Speech: Its History, Structure and Survival. Austin: University
of Texas Press.
Fasold, Ralph W. 1972. Tense Marking in Black English. Washington, D. C. Center for
Applied Linguistics.
Guy, Gregory. 1980. ‘‘Variation in the group and the individual: The case of final stop dele-
tion’’. In William Labov, ed. Locating Language in Time and Space. New York: Academic
Press, 1–36.
—— 1991. ‘‘Explanation in variable phonology: An exponential model of morphological
constraints’’. Language Variation and Change 3: 1–22.
 AAE and reading levels in inner-city schools 

—— 2000. ‘‘Variation and phonological theory’’. Paper presented at New Ways of Analyzing
Variation in English (NWAVE) 29, East Lansing, MI.
Labov, William. 1972. ‘‘Where do grammars stop’’? In Roger Shuy, ed. Georgetown Mono-
graphs in Languages and Linguistics 25. Washington, D.C: Georgetown University Press,
43–88.
—— Paul Cohen & Clarence Robins. 1965. ‘‘A preliminary study of the structure of English
used by Negro and Puerto Rican speakers in New York City’’. Final report, Cooperative
Research Project 3091. [ERIC ED 03 019].
—— —— —— & John Lewis. 1968. ‘‘A study of the non-standard English of Negro and
Puerto Rican Speakers in New York City’’. Cooperative Research Report 3288. Vols. I and
II. Philadelphia: U.S. Regional Survey (Linguistics Laboratory, University of
Pennsylvania).
Liberman, Isabelle, Donald Shankweiler, F. William Fischer, & Bonnie Carter. 1974.
‘‘Explicit syllable and phoneme segmentation in the young child’’. Journal of Experimen-
tal Child Psychology 18: 201–12.
Shankweiler, Donald & Isabelle Liberman. 1989. Phonology and Reading Disability: Solving
the Reading Puzzle. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Wolfram, Walt. 1969. A Sociolinguistic Description of Detroit Negro Speech. Arlington, VA:
Center for Applied Linguistics.
 Chapter 13

Applying linguistic knowledge of African

American English to help students learn and
teachers teach

John Baugh
Stanford University

. Introduction

Far too many African American students still suffer the ill effects of an inferior
education and scholars — including most of those who have contributed to this
volume — have attempted to find solutions to the seemingly intractable cycles
of school failure that continue to plague the vast majority of African American
students throughout the United States.
While I do not shrink from the daunting magnitude of the present topic,
to formulate hypotheses about how best to leverage linguistic findings in sup-
port of improving educational prospects for African American students, I am
mindful that all successful education is a cooperative enterprise. Here, I focus
on three legs of the educational stool: the role of educators, the role of parents,
and the responsibilities of students themselves. Like any other three-legged
stool, this one will surely topple if any of the legs are either missing or substan-
tially shorter than the others.
Although I do not wish to diminish the glaring detrimental consequences
of racism on the past, present, and future educational prospects of African
Americans, my remarks focus instead on criteria that are essential for the suc-
cess of students from any racial background. However, students who do not
enter school as native speakers of General American English are at a clear dis-
advantage. As other contributors to this edition have observed (see Wolfram
this volume; Wyatt this volume), there has been an unfortunate historical prac-
tice of viewing African American speech as deviant, or pathological. As a result,
far too many African American students have been placed in remedial and
 John Baugh

special education classes that presumed they were suffering from a linguistic
affliction rather than the fact that they were employing different speech norms
that have been the inevitable by-product of slavery and racial segregation.

. Organization of the discussion

I open the discussion with a brief thought experiment that allows us to contem-
plate hypothetical distinctions between racial prejudice and linguistic prejudice.
Upon confirming that linguistic prejudice would likely prevail even if the entire
country were racially homogeneous (i.e., entirely composed of Whites), we turn
to the need for collaborative cooperation among parents, educators, and stu-
dents in any successful educational enterprise. From there we ponder some of
the positive and negative consequences that can influence each group within
this constellation along with the hopes and aspirations that readers of this
volume will no doubt share regarding efforts to enhance the educational
performance of low-income and language-minority students.
Throughout this process I strive to introduce some of the linguistic contri-
butions that may enhance the work of educators, parents, and students, but
I do not attempt to offer a blueprint for academic success. To do so would deny
and defy the fact that educational circumstances throughout the United States
vary tremendously. Here I attempt to identify some of the common denom-
inators that will be essential to improving the success of the vast majority of
African American students, regardless of their locale. I conclude on a note of
caution, which I now introduce for the sake of emphasis and continuity: No
child should ever be made to feel ashamed of her or his linguistic or cultural
heritage, and especially not at the hands of professional educators.

. A linguistic thought experiment

Nearly every contribution to this volume considers the relationship between an

African racial heritage and language, in one form or another. However, it is
important that we consider the difference between linguistic attitudes and racial
attitudes. In order to do so, I seek your opinion regarding the following
thought experiment.
Imagine a different history for the United States, one in which there are no citizens
of color. Under this scenario, Columbus would have crossed the Atlantic and en-
countered no indigenous populations and all ensuing immigrants would have
come from Europe such that they did not exhibit any significant racial differences.
 Applying linguistic knowledge of AAE 

This imaginary history is one in which there would have been no African slave
trade, nor would there have been Chinese immigrants imported to build the
railroads, and there would have been no internment of Japanese Americans during
World War II. All citizens would be White.

The linguistic question at hand is fairly straightforward. Would linguistic

prejudice still exist in an “all White’’ United States and, if so, what would that
prejudice be based upon? In every region of the country where I have asked this
question previously, the answer has been categorical; no one has denied that
linguistic prejudice would prevail. Some of the factors typically mentioned are
region, sex, class, education, and occupation, among others.
This thought experiment is an important part of these introductory re-
marks because it allows us to conceptually disjoin minority racial classifications
from the linguistic and educational consequences of slavery that are at the heart
of this discussion.

. Coordination and collaboration among key participants

Most successful students become successful as a result of strategic support from

caring adults. Under ideal circumstances, these caring adults include loving
parents and competent-to-superior educators who nurture those children
whom they teach. Students who are successful also take considerable respon-
sibility for their academic progress. Each group has somewhat different
responsibilities, as described below.

. Adult educational advocates

Not all children are fortunate enough to live with loving parents who are com-
fortable and confident in their dealings with schools, and this is especially the
case for less fortunate children whose parents may have encountered difficulties
in schools throughout their own lives. While “adult advocates’’ may include
professional educators and those who are responsible for the student’s welfare
outside of school, these preliminary remarks focus on adult educational advo-
cates who are not professionally affiliated with schools. Rather, they would
consist of those adults who are responsible for the overall well-being of a child;
that is, in extracurricular contexts.
Suspending, for the moment, the negative consequences of those adults
who neglect their parental (or guardian) responsibilities, we proceed from the
 John Baugh

more positive position that adults who care for children want to provide the
best possible environment for those children, regardless of social status. My
own fieldwork in African American and other minority communities seems to
bear this out. Although parents and guardians have different resources available
to them, the vast majority do their very best to ensure the welfare of their
children. Clearly, this is more difficult for poor parents, and yet throughout
numerous interviews, parents have repeatedly stressed that they want the best
possible education for their children.
Successful adult advocates have the ability to intercede on behalf of their
children in academic settings. They are sufficiently familiar with schools and
schooling such that they initiate dialogue with the educators who are responsi-
ble for teaching their children. For reasons that are well-known to the vast
majority of readers of this chapter, many American slave descendants have not
met with overwhelming success in schools. That has resulted in a social climate
where many Black students are not provided with the same kind of interven-
tion and support that is more common among those who have more effective
educational advocates, to say nothing of greater resources.
For example, a child who may be shy in school could be reluctant to ask
questions or to alert the teacher to other difficulties encountered in school.
With the support and advocacy of a parent or guardian who is willing to inter-
vene on behalf of that child, educators may more quickly attend to the needs
of that student rather than let the problem continue unabated. Successful advo-
cates are those who find effective ways to communicate with educators, and
who do so in a manner that allows all parties — including the student(s) — to
adopt more effective practices in support of the educational well-being of the
student(s).
In simpler terms, some advocates lack the experience and confidence to
engage professional educators in support of their children while there are other
adult advocates who are extremely effective. This discussion is presented as a
dichotomy for expedience, but, in reality, the actual range of effective-to-
ineffective educational advocacy falls somewhere along a gradient continuum
and should not be viewed as fixed or constant.
Within the linguistic realm, we find that parents who speak General Ameri-
can English are more likely to be effective advocates for their children whereas
those who do not have high levels of General American English proficiency are
often at a linguistic disadvantage when it comes to effective educational inter-
vention. I think it is perhaps best to work on this matter from both sides of the
adult spectrum. For example, in the Oakland Unified School District, we are
 Applying linguistic knowledge of AAE 

currently working with parents on a voluntary basis to help them become more
effective advocates for their children. This calls for some extracurricular meet-
ings where experienced educators begin to provide strategies and advice on
how parents might lend more direct support in harmony with classroom in-
struction. Educators who are more tolerant of linguistic diversity will be more
helpful to language minority students than are teachers who presume that those
who lack General American English proficiency are incompetent or deficient
in other ways that will inhibit academic performance.
Although the adult advocacy project within the Oakland Unified School
District has had the benefit of modest external resources, the principles of co-
operation among professional educators and adults within the community have
been the norm rather than the exception for the overwhelming majority of
students who have met with academic success. Also, we readily recognize that
one size does not fit all. Each learning community is different, composed of
individuals with different talents and different expertise. Strategic utilization of
these talents among adults who recognize the paramount importance of the
personal and educational welfare of the children has been key to every success-
ful educational enterprise.

. Professional educators

For the purpose of this discussion, I would like to include all professionals who
typically work within schools. This would include administrators, teachers, and
staff members. Whereas some educators are perfectly comfortable with the
prospect of working closely with African American students and their adult
caregivers, many others are less comfortable with this prospect.
It would be simplistic — and wrongheaded — to attribute any lack of com-
fort to racism alone. While it is important to consider that racism still thrives in
far too many educational contexts, the lack of comfort to which I refer is not al-
ways or exclusively the result of racist beliefs or philosophies. In many instances,
educators have simply not had the necessary social exposure to provide sufficient
experience to understand African American culture and how best to handle the
special problems that tend to confront many students of African descent.
Educational staff members who value less fortunate children, many of
whom may or may not be of African descent, are most likely to provide the
supportive infrastructure that can enhance educational prospects for students.
Such staff members lend support to teachers and administrators as they conduct
their business and they often see or hear things that may shed light on ways to
 John Baugh

improve educational prospects. By contrast, when staff members are reticent

about the prospect of associations with African American students or their fami-
lies, for whatever reason, they will be less likely to bolster educational prospects.
A supportive staff can be extremely helpful to classroom teachers. When
those teachers are enthusiastic about the prospect of teaching socially diverse
students, we have found greater success, regardless of the racial background of
the teacher (Ladson-Billings 1994). Speaking, now, from personal experience,
I know that many teachers who devalue contact with African American stu-
dents will often withhold their best effort and, in some instances, may harbor
negative stereotypes about African Americans that are detrimental to students’
welfare.
School administrators play a significant role in the overall climate of the
educational context as well as setting a tone for the nature of the learning com-
munity that will evolve under their leadership. Outstanding school administra-
tors do not appear by accident; they tend to have a combination of talents and
experiences that enable them to be effective with the various constituents they
serve. Also, some school administrators may be very effective in one context
only to find they are extremely ineffective in others. This diversity of effective-
ness is relevant, I believe, to the success — or lack thereof — by administrators
who have met with considerable success among African American students.
Since we recognize that African American student populations are diverse, as
are the schools they attend, it is important to appreciate that these generic ob-
servations pertaining to successful school administrators apply to educational
supervision in a host of different circumstances.
Some schools are predominantly African American whereas many other
schools have fewer numbers of African American students. Similarly, some
administrators have met with more or less success with the respective number
of African American students whom they serve on site. The common denom-
inator associated with administrative success lies in the ability to motivate
students, teachers, and parents (or caregivers) who work directly with students
and to play a supportive and informed role as these constituents seek advice
and resources about how best to advance the educational well-being of African
American students.

. Student responsibilities

While it may seem obvious and unworthy of extensive commentary, students

must certainly play a vital role in their own education, regardless of their
 Applying linguistic knowledge of AAE 

background. It is especially important that students who are not privileged

devote considerable effort to their studies. It is, of course, important for all
students to devote their best effort toward their studies, but I stress this matter
in the case of African American students because so many American slave
descendants remain in poverty and are unable to count on the luxury of
small class sizes or ample resources that are available to students whose parents
are wealthy; that is, parents who either purchase superior private education
for their children or whose children attend well-funded public schools with
superior resources.
Students at different ages will be more or less responsible for their own
educational volition. In other words, we would not expect younger children to
have the knowledge or maturity to assume the bulk of responsibility for their
own education, although we all know of exceptional children who defy this
trend. However, as children grow older, they should be expected to take on
more direct responsibility for the organization and control of their studies.
Again, many parents with sufficient means place this burden on professional
educators or tutors, but students who live in poverty seldom have this option.
It is largely for this reason that I call for a triangulation of support between
educators and caregivers to work in harmony with students in support of their
academic advancement.

. Pervasive linguistic stereotypes

Many educators and members of the general public still maintain uninformed
linguistic stereotypes about African American English (AAE). This may have
negative consequences for students and parents who fall prey to these stereo-
types. Educational research has shown that self-fulfilling prophecies tend to
prevail when teachers have low opinions of their students (Babad 1995;
Rosenthal/Jackson 1968), especially so when those low opinions are based
heavily on the vernacular language or dialects that students bring to school
from their home communities. Under these circumstances, the potential nega-
tive impact on students’ education can be severe.
One of the reasons for this volume, and the conference that gave rise to it,
grows directly from the fact that so many people (including educators) still
believe that AAE is not merely non-standard but “wrong’’. As long as these
uninformed linguistic stereotypes prevail among educators, the prospects for
their students will continue to be low. Many educators remain unconvinced by
 John Baugh

the volumes of linguistic evidence confirming that the linguistic legacy of

American slavery is not “ungrammatical’’ or simply “bad’’ English. Until the
time comes that we can be certain that children who speak AAE will never be
taught by teachers who devalue their speech, we can be reasonably assured
racial- and linguistic-minority children will ever hope to receive more equitable
educational opportunities.

. Overcoming inequitable education

Assuming, for the sake of discussion, we were somehow able to eliminate every
vestige of linguistic prejudice in schools, we would still need to address the
unequal educational opportunities that afflict impoverished schools throughout
the nation. The courts in various regions of the country are still wrestling with
alternative ways of redistributing wealth among school districts to ensure that
the gap between affluent and less affluent schools and school districts continues
to diminish.
Readers of this volume may already be aware of the fact that the United
States is one of the only advanced industrialized societies without a national
ministry of education that helps to ensure equity. One of the reasons there has
been so much controversy over the concept of educational standards grows
directly from differences of public opinion about the relative value, or lack of
it, pertaining to the role the federal government should play in supporting and
overseeing education throughout the nation. Some feel the federal government
should play a strategic and pervasive role while others believe local communi-
ties and local educators should determine what is best for local schools.
I fall somewhere between these extreme positions because I think the fed-
eral government has a responsibility to ensure that all schools meet certain
minimum standards and that no child should be forced to attend an inferior
school due to unabated mismanagement or malfeasance. On the other hand,
local educators are far better equipped to know the demographics of local stu-
dents as well as aspects of local businesses and the immediate economy which
could place strategic burdens on schools in different regions. Thus, for exam-
ple, schools serving students in predominantly agricultural communities may
wish to offer courses that are tailored to an agrarian economy whereas urban
schools may choose to stress alternative educational programs tied to their local
economy. However, these local decisions also have the potential to go too far.
It is essential that schools strike a balance between their local constituency
 Applying linguistic knowledge of AAE 

while ensuring that the education they provide is comparable to the basic
education that is available anywhere else in the nation. Baugh (1999) discusses
these matters at much greater length with regard to the detrimental conse-
quences of educational malpractice which, in my opinion, has not received
adequate public attention.

. Possible linguistic support

On a more optimistic note, I believe it is possible to help educators move

beyond the status quo with respect to the plight and perils of students who
speak AAE. Whenever non-educators determine problems that educators
should address, as we now do here, it usually results in recommendations that
call for extensive training on the part of teachers, say, in the form of preservice
or inservice training. While some additional background in linguistics may
indeed be beneficial to educators, particularly if they have no such knowledge,
it is far more likely that educators need us to configure support that places
minimum demands on their time.
In other words, “help’’ that comes in the form of requests for more teacher
time are “less helpful’’ (or potentially less helpful) than are offers of support
that recognize, in advance, that teachers’ time is precious and best spent in
support of their students. This idea is actually being implemented in the adult
advocacy collaboration with the Oakland Unified School District. For example,
as part of an effort to help adults (i.e., teachers and parents) who are positive
educational advocates for students enrolled in Oakland’s public elementary
schools, we have designed some interactive web sites that are available on-line.
Oakland’s adult advocates can, in turn, respond to questions that allow edu-
cational researchers to offer feedback and other suggestions on how best to
support the education of individual children.
Admittedly, these procedures do consume additional time, but they do so
at the convenience of the teacher or parent and do not inherently force adults
to choose between instructional time with students versus completing a linguis-
tic and educational profile of the student(s) for whom they are responsible. The
general philosophy behind the kind of assistance I have in mind is that which
is beneficial to educators and their students and considerate of the fact that
their time together is precious and worthy of protection. Assistance that is
substantive and sensitive to the working circumstances that students and teach-
ers face is more likely to fare better, I believe, than would more intrusive
 John Baugh

procedures that compel educators to conform to others’ demands without their

advice or consultation.

. Personal possibilities: What can you do?

Anyone reading this article is likely to be interested in finding new ways to help
improve educational prospects for African American students. It is perhaps
most beneficial for you to first reflect upon your roles and personal strengths
prior to taking direct action in support of this educational enterprise. For
example, are you a scholar, educator, or parent; or do you have different roles
on different occasions?
Depending upon how you answer the preceding questions, your potential
contributions may vary. Under any circumstance, however, we have found
successful schools with large numbers of African American students consis-
tently maintaining support and cooperation among adults throughout the edu-
cational tenure of individual students. As such, all parties are committed to
enhancing communication and all participants in the educational equation are
treated with respect. There is no devaluation of the students or their home
language, but there is also no misguided sentimentality that substitutes low
academic expectations for the competitive skills that will be needed by students
who may be unlikely to count on external support or affirmative action.
It therefore behooves those of us who value social diversity across the social
spectrum to devote greater effort in anticipation of policies that will deny pref-
erential treatment or admission of minority students to competitive institutions
of higher learning. Clearly some of the most salient events lie in the political
arena. The proposed educational support will be beneficial, if not necessary, to
closing existing gaps in educational performance that still confirm statistically
significant gaps in standardized test scores for racial- and linguistic-minority
students.

. A closing commentary

The educational aspiration I hold for this chapter remains cautiously optimistic
because I know full well that efforts to circumvent linguistic bias in American
education are formidable. I therefore propose two modest, but important, goals
which I believe can be accomplished by people of good will.
 Applying linguistic knowledge of AAE 

First, no child should be made to feel ashamed of his or her native language
or culture, regardless of the child’s background and regardless of the school
that child attends. I speak again from personal experience as one who attended
inner-city schools in Philadelphia and Los Angeles with teachers who felt it was
their professional duty to chastise me and my classmates for using “bad’’
English. Many of these linguistically uninformed remarks remain among my
most painful educational memories. I welcome the prospect of helping other
minority students, and their teachers, avoid such circumstances.
The final point is one which I discuss more fully elsewhere. Out of the
Mouths of Slaves (Baugh 1999) extends the concept of “miseducation’’ to other
service professions where “malpractice’’ may be more pronounced against less
fortunate citizens who must rely on a host of public services which, in turn,
rely on public funding. Linguistic stereotypes often exacerbate instances of
educational malpractice, including various forms of professional misconduct
in educational contexts.
While I am loath to conclude on a pessimistic note, the educational plight
of the vast majority of African American students has never fared well. This is
due to a host of social, political, and economic circumstances that far exceed
the linguistic dimensions that are the object of inquiry throughout this volume.
Contributors to this edition all recognize the importance of linguistic research
to the ultimate well-being of African American students, but linguistic research
alone will not accomplish this goal. As previously mentioned, teachers who are
respectful of their students, including their linguistic heritage and vernacular
culture, are much more likely to be successful than are teachers who devalue
students who lack General American English proficiency.
I believe one of the reasons it has been so difficult for us to disseminate
our messages pertaining to linguistic equality and tolerance grows largely from
the fact that linguistic prejudice, like its cousin, racial prejudice, is continually
reinvented through cultural osmosis and social inertia that can be traced sub-
stantially to the legacy of the African slave trade and its lingering impact on
diminished educational prospects for African American students.

References

Babad, Elisha. 1995. “The teacher’s pet phenomenon, students’ perceptions of differential
behavior, and students’ morale’’. Journal of Educational Psychology 87: 361–74.
 John Baugh

Baugh, John. 1999. Out of the Mouths of Slaves: African American Language and Educational
Malpractice. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Ladson-Billings, Gloria. 1994. The Dreamkeepers. San Franciso: Josey Bass.
Rosenthal, Robert & Lenore Jacobson. 1968. Pygmalion in the Classroom. New York: Holt,
Rinehart & Winston.
 Chapter 14

Reconsidering the sociolinguistic agenda for

African American English: The next
generation of research and application

Walt Wolfram
North Carolina State University

. Introduction

No sociolinguistic situation in the history of English has endured more scrutiny

in such a compressed time frame than that given to African American English
(AAE) over the past few decades. The investigation of this variety dwarfs the
study of other ethnic varieties and regional varieties by comparison. In fact,
surveys of published research on varieties of American English from 1965
through 1993 (Schneider 1996: 3) show that African American English has
more than five times as many publications devoted to it than any other variety.
The breadth of inquiry and application is amply demonstrated by the chapters
in this volume, which include micro and macro descriptive accounts of lan-
guage form and function as well as socio-educational and socio-political issues
that extend from instructional pedagogy to ideological perspective. It is there-
fore an imposing task to attempt to synthesize and assess the state of progress,
and perhaps a bit arrogant to set forth an agenda of research and application
that might transition the investigation of African American English into the
next millennium. Of necessity, this account is selective; I can simply apologize
for the restricted, existential perspective with the hope that some of the myopic
perspective may be tempered by the range of experience that has characterized
my own involvement with this topic for more than three decades now.
For the sake of convenience, I discuss the issues related to the study of
African American language in terms of three major categories: (1) synchronic
issues, (2) diachronic issues, and (3) application issues. Appropriately, the
chapters in this collection illustrate a full range of topics within these catego-
 Walt Wolfram

ries, but the issues are not neatly confined by taxonomic division. Historical
development is integrally related to contemporary issues of description and
application cannot be separated neatly from description nor history. Following
the discussion, I propose an agenda for the future consideration of African
American English — admittedly personal but wishfully sensitive to the wide
range of concerns represented by the authors in this volume.

. Synchronic issues

There are a host of issues that concern the contemporary status of language
variation among African Americans, ranging from broad-based issues of defini-
tion as highlighted in Foster, Morgan, Mufwene, Spears, and Troutman in the
current volume, to the examination of phonetic and morphosyntactic detail
found in Bailey’s and Cukor-Avila’s descriptive accounts. There is little doubt
that the state of sociolinguistic knowledge has advanced substantially in some
areas, but in other areas our knowledge is still limited. Furthermore, some de-
bates have actually accelerated rather than subsided, with little immediate hope
for the emergence of consensus positions by researchers or the general public.
Not surprisingly, one of the most persistent and widespread issues of de-
bate remains the matter of definition. What precisely is meant by the term
African American English and who speaks it? The issues related to this ques-
tion run the full gamut, from the criteria for definition and appropriate naming
to the right of definition and the sociopolitical and ideological implications of
dialect labeling (Baugh 1991; Smitherman 1991, 1994; Mufwene this volume).
Even the terms “dialect’’ and “language’’ are implicated in this debate. The
evolution of labels for the varieties spoken by African Americans and the on-
going debate about appropriate labeling are ample testament to the deeper
issues at stake in the naming game. The early presentations of African Ameri-
can English (e.g., Fasold/Wolfram 1970; Labov 1972; Wolfram 1969) seemed
to be fairly content to define the variety on the basis of a select set of segmental
phonological, morphological, and syntactic structures — structural inventories
that continue to be the yardsticks of definition for many linguists (Fasold 1981;
Winford 1997, 1998; Bailey/Thomas 1998; Bailey this volume; Cukor-Avila this
volume). At the same time, we know from experience only too well that just
about every presentation to an open audience will evoke at least a couple of
questions challenging the speaker’s operational definition of the variety.
Such questions often point to the deeper issues of inclusion and exclusion at
 Reconsidering the AAE sociolinguistic agenda 

stake in presumed definitions as well as linguistic biases that favor structural

cataloguing over dimensions of language use and function. Furthermore, the
definitional prerogative may derive from a type of linguistic colonialism, or at
least a kind of structural linguistic ethnocentrism.
At the risk of being self-incriminating, let me expose the attitude that I held
during my early days of teaching at the University of the District of Columbia.
In lectures to my classes about the linguistic structures of African American
English, I was often confronted by African American students who would ob-
serve, “But I speak Black English and I don’t use those features in my speech’’.
I must confess to a kind of linguistic patronization that assumed that the basis
for the comments was simply due to a lack of knowledge or, perhaps, an appeal
for an inclusive definition motivated for ideological reasons of identity and
solidarity. In retrospect, however, I may have been the one missing the point
because of my selective focus on the structural segments of the variety. In real-
ity, there are many African Americans who are ethnically identifiable on the
basis of language properties other than the kinds of inventories of vernacular
structures that have dominated the studies of African American speech by social
dialectologists. What about prosodic features that may range from intonation
to the culturally-determined use of laryngealization, or even differences in the
fundamental frequencies of vowel formants? What about language use differ-
ences that range from conversational routines such as greeting and leave-taking
to backchanneling? How about narrative organization? Perhaps more impor-
tantly, what about the right of people to define themselves, both with respect
to the establishment of definitional criteria and the right to assign labeling?
Mufwene has set forth these persistent issues of definition most pointedly.

The distinguishing features associated with a referent do not necessarily justify the
association nor the naming practice. Different users often resort to different distin-
guishing features and these just help single out the bearer from many other poten-
tial referents . . . We should indeed ask ourselves whether we have been consistent
practitioners when on the one hand, we argue in theory that it is up to native
speakers to determine the affiliation of the language variety they speak and, on the
other, we take it upon ourselves to determine who speaks English and who does not
on criteria that are far from being obvious . . . There are really no conclusions other
than the obvious. So far, we have done poor jobs either in not reconciling some of
our definitions of AAE with our analyses, in overemphasizing extreme differences
and disregarding similarities with other English vernaculars, or in proposing defini-
tions that ignore the sentiments of native speakers (Mufwene this volume).

At various points during the study of African American speech over the
 Walt Wolfram

past several decades, there has been a reaction against the sociolinguistic obses-
sion with the maximally basilectal, stigmatized structural features of African
American English, as if authentic African American linguistic identity only
existed in the manifestation of the most vernacular structures. Reaction against
this vernacular obsession is one of the reasons why some scholars have called
for a more inclusive definition that might include those African Americans who
spoke what might be considered “Standard African American English’’ — a
variety ethnically identifiable but not necessarily stigmatized (Spears 1988;
Taylor 1986) — as well as those who spoke the vernacular version of African
American English. Similarly, there have been calls for a more functionally based
definition of the variety (Smitherman 1977, 1994; Morgan 1994, 1998), a con-
cern reiterated explicitly or implicitly in chapters by Baugh, Morgan, Spears,
Foster, Wyatt, and Zeigler in the current volume. As one who must bear partial
responsibility for the current structural biases (Wolfram 1969; Fasold/Wolfram
1970; Wolfram/Fasold 1974), I can only say that we need to reconsider the basis
of definition from a broader, more inclusive perspective; we also need to arrive
at a definition that is sensitive to the identification and labeling of speakers by
the speech community itself.
While issues of definition are still in dispute, considerable progress has
been made with respect to our knowledge of particular vernacular structures,
both in terms of their system-internal organization and in terms of their rela-
tionship to regional contact varieties. Early debates on the structural status
of African American English seemed to be consumed with the verification or
repudiation of unique vernacular structures in comparison with analogous
varieties spoken by European American speakers. Region and class must be
controlled in the comparison so that the question can only be answered satis-
factorily by examining the speech of socially subordinate European American
and African American groups in the South because of the sociohistorical roots
of AAE as a Southern-based variety. Factors other than general region and class
have to be considered, however, including age, rurality, and particular region
of the South (Bailey/Maynor 1987).
Although the issue of African American and European American speech
relations is still not totally resolved after several decades of heated debate, some
cautious agreement on points of similarity and difference is emerging thanks
to the compilation of inventories such as Fasold (1981), Bailey/Thomas (1998),
Bailey (in this volume), Cukor-Avila (in this volume), Mufwene et al. (1998),
Rickford (1999), and Winford (1997, 1998). At the same time, however,
some new points of controversy have arisen. Admittedly, the list of “unique’’
 Reconsidering the AAE sociolinguistic agenda 

structural features proposed for African American English in the early invento-
ries (e.g., Fasold/Wolfram 1970) has dwindled significantly, and even the re-
stricted list requires important qualifications. In some cases, it is a particular
aspect of the phonological or grammatical pattern which is unique rather than
the pattern in general. For example, consonant cluster reduction, a well-known
feature of AAE, is a very general process in English, but in many varieties it
only applies when the item is preconsonantal or utterance-final (e.g., bes’ kind,
It’s the bes), whereas in AAE it occurs in both prevocalic and preconsonantal
environments. In other cases, the difference between the patterning of a feature
in AAE and its patterning in a comparable European American variety may
involve a significant quantitative difference rather than a qualitative one. For
example, third person singular -s absence (e.g., she walk) is found in both Afri-
can American and European American vernaculars but it occurs at substantially
different percentage rates. Some African American speakers show levels of ab-
sence between 80 and 95 percent while comparable European American speak-
ers show a range of 5 to 15 percent absence.
Debate over some AAE structures has continued or, in some cases, has re-
emerged despite careful reviews of the present status of AAE in relationship to
other varieties. For example, research by Bailey/Bassett (1986) and Montgom-
ery/Mishoe (1999) indicate that finite be (e.g., I be there; They be doing it) is
found in both European American and African American varieties. At the same
time, other investigators have suggested there are additional forms that may
qualify as unique AAE forms. For example, Labov (1987, 1998) suggests that
among the constructions which were overlooked in earlier descriptions of AAE
is resultative be done (e.g., I’ll be done put so many holes in it you won’t know
what happened).
There are also structures in AAE that appear on the surface to be very
much like constructions in other varieties of English but turn out, upon closer
inspection, to have uses or meanings that are unique. One of these so-called
camouflaged forms is the form come in constructions with an -ing verb, as in
She come acting like she was real mad (Spears 1982). This construction looks like
a common English use of the motion verb come in structures like She came
running, but research indicates that it actually has a special use as a kind of
auxiliary verb indicating indignation on the part of the speaker. The specialized
meaning of indignation associated with this use is apparently unique to AAE.
A slightly different case of camouflaging is found in constructions such as
They call themselves painting the room or Walt call(s) himself dancing (Wolfram
1994). The meaning of this form is quite similar to the General American
 Walt Wolfram

English (GAE) meaning of call oneself constructions with noun phrases or

adjectives such as He calls himself a cook or She calls herself nice to indicate that
someone is attributing qualities or skills to him/herself which are not actually
possessed by the speaker. Thus, a person who calls him/herself dancing is actu-
ally doing a very poor imitation of dancing. The shared counterfactual meaning
of the AAE and AAE constructions obscures the fact that the call oneself con-
struction does not typically occur with a verb + -ing construction in most vari-
eties of English. European American speakers will, for example, say She
calls herself a painter but not typically She calls herself painting, whereas
African American speakers are more prone to use both kinds of constructions
(Wolfram 1994).
Although the debate over African American and European American
speech relations will no doubt continue, it is probably fair to conclude that
there is a restricted subset of structures that is unique to AAE. Even though it
is certainly possible to compare structures used by European American and
African American speakers on an item-by-item basis, the picture that emerges
from such an approach does not fully represent the true relationship between
these vernacular varieties. It appears that the uniqueness of AAE lies more in
the particular array of structures that comprises the variety than it does in the
restricted set of potentially unique structures. It is the co-occurrence of gram-
matical structures such as the absence of various suffixes (e.g., possessive -s,
third person singular -s, plural -s), copula absence, habitual be, and so forth,
along with a set of phonological characteristics such as prevocalic cluster reduc-
tion, syllable-coda [f] for ‘th’ (e.g., baf for “bath’’), postvocalic r-lessness, and
so forth that seems to define the variety rather than the subset of proposed
unique features per se. To find that a structure previously thought to be unique
to AAE is shared by a European American vernacular variety hardly challenges
the notion of the uniqueness of AAE as a language variety. Studies of listener
perception of ethnic identity certainly support the contention that AAE is dis-
tinct from comparable European American vernaculars as most of these studies
(Shuy/Williams 1973; Baugh 1996) show correct identification of African
Americans and Anglo Americans based on speech samples alone at levels of
80 percent or higher.
We have been discussing AAE as if it were a unitary variety in different
regions of the United States, but there is certainly regional variation within the
variety (Wyatt this volume). Some of the Northern metropolitan versions of
AAE are distinguishable from Southern rural versions and South Atlantic
coastal varieties are different from those found in the Gulf region. While
 Reconsidering the AAE sociolinguistic agenda 

admitting some of these regional variations, however, one of the most note-
worthy aspects of AAE is the common core of features shared across different
regions. Features such as habitual be, copula absence, inflectional -s absence,
among a number of other grammatical and phonological structures, are found
in locations as distant as Los Angeles, California; New Haven, Connecticut;
Meadville, Mississippi; Austin, Texas; and Wilmington, North Carolina, as well
as in both urban and rural settings. Thus, we recognize regional variation in
AAE while concluding, at the same time, that the regional differences do not
come close to the magnitude of regional differences that exist across Anglo
varieties. The basic core of features, regardless of where the variety has been
studied in the United States so far, underscore the strong ethnic associations
of this language variety.
One of the most controversial issues related to AAE over the last decade
concerns its current course of development (see, for example, Bailey 1993;
Bailey/Maynor 1989; Butters 1989; Fasold et al. 1987). Based on research con-
ducted by Labov and his colleagues in Philadelphia in the mid 1980s (Labov
1985, 1987; Myhill/Harris 1986; Dayton 1996) and by G. Bailey and his col-
leagues in the South in the mid 1980s (Bailey/Basset 1986; Bailey/Maynor
1985a, 1985b, 1987), some researchers concluded that AAE is actually diverging
from rather than converging with surrounding vernaculars. As Labov (1985: 1)
put it, “their [African American residents of Philadelphia] speech pattern is
developing in its own direction and becoming more different from the speech
of Whites in the same communities’’.
The divergence hypothesis remains in considerable dispute. For one, the
reduction of dialect change to generic, bipolar directional designations such as
“convergence’’ and “divergence’’ may not serve comparative scrutiny or the
study of language change most judiciously. It is, for example, quite possible for
a given variety to show both movement towards and away from other varieties
simultaneously depending on the structure. There are also questions about the
particular structures cited as evidence for divergence, namely, the resultative be
done (e.g., I’ll be done put so many holes in him he’ll wish he wouldn’t a said it),
a special narrative use of -s with verbs to mark a lively past time narrative, and
habitual be (Myhill/Harris 1986). For example, the resultative be done construc-
tion is quite rare and has apparently been a part of the dialect for some time
although it had not been described in detail in earlier studies until Dayton
(1996). And the historical narrative form may actually represent an underlying
convergence with a prevalent feature of other vernacular varieties of English —
the use of the so-called historical present in storytelling contexts (e.g., I went
 Walt Wolfram

to the store, I goes in, and there before my eyes, I see this guy pull out a gun . . .).
From the evidence offered so far, the strongest case for divergence seems
to come from the research on habitual be in the South carried out by Bailey/
Maynor (1987). Based upon the study of older and younger Black speakers in
urban and rural contexts, they conclude that this form is developing a unique
grammatical function of habituality with the -ing form of verbs (e.g., They be
messing with me). There also may be some features of AAE that are, in fact,
becoming more robust and so serving to make this variety more distinct from
other varieties. For example, John Rickford (1991) shows that core features
such as inflectional -s absence and habitual be are used at higher frequency
levels than reported in some earlier studies in the 1960s.
Our recent research on the development of AAE in a historically isolated
area of coastal North Carolina underscores another trend in the development
of AAE (Wolfram/Thomas/Green 2000), namely, the movement away from
localized dialect norms towards a more uniform version of the vernacular. For
example, in the isolated marshland of Hyde County, North Carolina, there is
evidence that older African Americans were heavily vested in the uniquely re-
gional coastal variety of English, but that younger speakers are moving away
from these highly local features. Perhaps more important, these recessive local
dialect features are being replaced by a more widespread, common-core set of
AAE features. The pattern of dialect recession for the traditional coastal dialect
is not unlike the decline found in the speech of Outer Banks European Ameri-
cans (Wolfram/Hazen/Schilling-Estes 1998), but the replacement varieties are
quite different. African Americans are clearly supplanting the vernacular Pam-
lico Sound English with core AAE features whereas European Americans are
replacing it with a combination of Southern and Midland vernacular structures.
In part, the explanation for the rejection of aspects of localized regional
varieties by African Americans may be attributed to the expanded contact of
post-insular African American communities due to increased mobility and
more extended contact with African Americans outside of the local context. But
we also need to consider the role of cultural identity in accounting for the
movement towards core AAE features. Over the past half century, there has
been a growing sense of ethnic identity associated with AAE. This identity is
supported through a variety of informal and formal social mechanisms that
range from community-based social network norms to stereotypical media
projections of African American speech (Lippi-Green 1997). Although there are
varying definitions of the essential linguistic ingredients of this variety, there
is growing recognition of this ethnic variety — by European Americans and
 Reconsidering the AAE sociolinguistic agenda 

African Americans alike — that includes a general core of vernacular phono-

logical and grammatical features. Along with the adoption of core features,
there is an avoidance of features that are associated with “White speech’’ (Ash/
Myhill 1986; Graff/Labov/Harris 1986). Thus, ethnolinguistic diversity may
increase whether or not there is evidence for the independent development of
AAE away from comparable European American vernaculars (Butters 1989;
Dayton 1996). In this developing ethnolinguistic milieu, some speakers who
identify strongly with African American culture contra “White culture’’ would
therefore be inclined to change their speech towards the more generalized ver-
sion of AAE while resisting the assimilation of localized regional norms. Cer-
tainly, there is ample evidence to support the conclusion that AAE is a robust
ethnic variety which is in some ways more solidified and symbolic than it has
ever been.
Although there has been extensive study of the core structural features of
AAE, there has been surprisingly little study of speakers’ manipulation of these
structures, both in terms of their range of shifts in usage and their linguistic
competence of structures. Despite Rickford/McNair-Knox’s (1994) insightful
examination of style-shifting, there is actually little systematic examination of
one of the most frequently stated beliefs about code-switching and/or stylistic
variation: that African Americans have more stylistic range in their linguistic
repertoires than their European American cohorts and that code-switching into
and out of AAE is a fairly common, audience-determined activity (Bell 1984,
forthcoming; Wyatt this volume). But the objective sociolinguistic correlates
of the presumed code-switching ability need to be investigated on all levels of
language organization as well as the symbolic significance of such shifts in or-
der to complement the sometimes myopic focus on the description of struc-
tural details of the variety as it occurs in the most spontaneous, indigenous
interview style. Happily, a more balanced complement of descriptions is found
in some of the chapters in this volume, which not only includes the traditional
structural overviews (e.g., Bailey and Cukor-Avila) but also pragmatic organiza-
tion (e.g., Spears), discourse (e.g., Spears, Troutman), and genre (e.g., Foster,
Morgan, Troutman, and Zeigler).

. Diachronic issues

Positions on the genesis and development of AAE have endured several

“consensus’’ positions only to find these positions revised significantly into
 Walt Wolfram

new consensus positions. In the 1950s and early 1960s the Anglicist hypothesis
— that the speech of African Americans essentially derived from British-based
dialects — was commonly accepted by dialectologists (McDavid/McDavid
1951), only to be replaced in the 1970s by the widespread acceptance of the
Creolist hypothesis — that AAE was historically rooted in an expansive creole
found in the African Diaspora (B. Bailey 1965; Stewart 1967; Dillard 1972).
However, since then, several new corpora have emerged to challenge the
Creolist hypothesis. One important type of data examined in the 1980s was the
written records of ex-slaves (Schneider 1983, 1989, 1997) as well as a limited
set of audio recordings with ex-slaves (Bailey/Maynor/Cukor-Avila 1991;
Sutcliffe this volume). Written corpora include an extensive set of narratives
collected under the Works Project Administration (WPA) in the 1930s (Schnei-
der 1989; Bailey et al. 1991), letters written by semiliterate ex-slaves in the mid
1800s (Montgomery/Fuller/DeMarse 1993; Montgomery/Fuller 1996), and
other specialized collections of texts, such as the Hyatt texts — an extensive set
of interviews conducted with Black hoodoo doctors in the 1930s (Hyatt 1970–
78; Viereck 1988; Ewers 1996). These records seemed to point towards the con-
clusion that earlier AAE was not nearly as distinct from post-colonial European
American English varieties as would have been predicted under the Creolist
hypothesis.
Data from the examination of Black expatriate varieties of English also have
challenged the Creolist hypothesis. For example, in the 1820s, Blacks who mi-
grated to the peninsula of Samaná in the Dominican Republic lived in relative
isolation and have maintained a relic variety of English up to the present day
(Poplack/Sankoff 1987; Poplack/Tagliamonte 1989). A significant population
of African Americans also migrated from the United States to Canada in the
early 1800s and some have lived to this day in relative isolation in Nova Scotia
(Poplack/Tagliamonte 1991). The English varieties spoken by Blacks in Nova
Scotia and Samaná appeared to show a much greater similarity to post-colonial
European American varieties than a presumed creole predecessor would be
expected to show, again casting doubt on the Creolist hypothesis.
Even though studies such as those cited above have provided the impetus
for a resurgent interest in the Anglicist hypothesis, it has hardly become the
consensus position (e.g., Rickford 1997, this volume; Hannah 1997; Singler
1989, 1991, 1998; Sutcliffe this volume; Winford 1997, 1998). Data from an
expatriate Black population that migrated to Liberia in the 1800s (Singler
1989), for example, seem to support the Creolist hypothesis rather than the
Anglicist hypothesis and Hannah’s (1997) alternative analysis of data from
 Reconsidering the AAE sociolinguistic agenda 

expatriate Blacks in Samaná also offers an analysis consonant with the Creolist
rather than the Anglicist position represented in Poplack/Sankoff (1987) and
Poplack/Tagliamonte (1989). Sutcliffe’s chapter also challenges the Anglicist
position, even citing some of the same data used as the basis for the Anglicist
interpretation.
Perhaps more important than the current set of conclusions about the
history of African American speech is the establishment of principles of docu-
mentation, data extraction, and source attribution that might guide the debate.
For example, Sutcliffe’s chapter demonstrates how the same recorded database
may be analyzed in quite contrastive ways based on background and perspec-
tive. Meanwhile, researchers, such as Singler (1989) and Mufwene (1996a,
1996b, 1998) along with Bailey’s and Cukor-Avila’s chapters in this volume,
point to the need to examine more closely the role of language ecology. Dialec-
tologists and sociolinguists have sometimes slighted the critical role of demo-
graphic and sociohistorical circumstance in reconstructing the historical devel-
opment of African American speech in the United States.
Our own investigation of the historical development of the speech of Afri-
can Americans (Wolfram/Thomas/Green 2000) considers a surprisingly
neglected sociolinguistic situation — the longstanding, relatively isolated, bi-
racial community in the rural South. Hyde County, North Carolina, located
along the eastern seaboard of North Carolina by the Pamlico Sound, was first
inhabited by Europeans in the first decade of the 1700s, making it one of the
oldest European American settlement communities in North Carolina. Shortly
thereafter, African Americans were brought to the area (Kay/Cary 1995). This
setting proves ideal for examining several critical issues regarding the historical
development of African American speech. For one, it offers a sociolinguistic
context involving a long-term, relatively insular bi-racial situation featuring a
distinctive European American variety. Thus, it provides important insight into
the extent to which earlier African American speech shared in local dialect
patterning. At the same time, the historical continuity of the African American
community in the region — almost three centuries old now — provides an
important perspective on the possible genesis and early development of AAE.
Finally, it provides insight into how African American speech is presently devel-
oping with respect to local European American vernacular varieties of English
as well as varieties spoken by African Americans elsewhere. Our data suggest
that some earlier dialect features of the English spoken by African Americans
were quite congruent with unique, localized varieties of English spoken by their
European American cohorts, but there is also evidence for some long-standing,
 Walt Wolfram

selective structural differences in European American and African American

varieties. Data also indicate that the adoption of localized structures was not
always isomorphic so that the historic language-contact situation obviously
resulted in some significant reconfigurations of dialect features. And then there
is evidence for newer features of broad-based AAE that have been adopted by
younger African Americans, such as habitual be with verb+-ing (also referred
to as be2).
One of the important lessons to be learned from such an examination con-
cerns the selection of diagnostic structures for investigating earlier African
American speech. A very different picture of earlier African American speech
might emerge if a researcher focused on past tense be regularization (e.g., It
weren’t me) as opposed to third person singular -s or copula absence. An au-
thentic picture of earlier African American speech can emerge only if a
wide array of dialect structures is considered, including overall profiles of
vowel systems; tense, mood, and aspect systems; and so forth. While selective,
single-structure studies may reveal significant insight into a particular linguistic
process, they may obscure or even distort our understanding of the overall
relationship of African American speech to other varieties. It is thus essential
to keep both the linguistic trees and the sociolinguistic forest in view as we
attempt to capture a clear picture of earlier African American English.
If nothing else, the disputes over historical development have pointed out
the multidimensional complexities involved in reconstructing the genesis and
subsequent development of African American English. For example, the follow-
ing kinds of issues must be addressed in terms of attributing donor sources for
earlier AAE (Wolfram 1998).

1. The internal reconstruction issue–determining the earlier status of the

variety vis-à-vis its current status
2. The contact issue–determining the nature of contact accommodation and
restructuring; universal and/or transfer strategies
3. The transmission issue–determining processes responsible for adoption;
diffusion vs. innovation
4. The constraint issue–determining structural and non-structural effects on
developing structures
5. The transition issue–determining progressive stages of adoption and
accommodation
6. The explanation issue–formulating principled cognitive constraints,
universal production, and processing strategies
 Reconsidering the AAE sociolinguistic agenda 

Issues in reconstruction and donor attribution involve methodological,

descriptive, and explanatory levels. For example, Rickford (1985) and Mont-
gomery (1989) address some of the methodological issues when they assert that
the analyst must attend carefully to the form and meaning of diagnostic fea-
tures, specify the linguistic environment in which the feature occurs, tabulate
the frequency with which the feature occurs, consider the interrelation of the
feature with other features in the grammar, and document that demographic
information from the documentary record demonstrates a historical connection
between the groups speaking the varieties concerned. In this connection, I offer
a methodological corollary of the so-called founder principle (Mufwene 1996a),
which asserts that structural peculiarities of an area are predetermined by the
characteristics of the vernaculars spoken by the population that founded the
English-speaking colonies.

It may be assumed that the existence of dialect features found in the speech of the
oldest group of recorded speakers (and available earlier written records) represents
the longstanding maintenance of a dialect feature. The founder effect is favored in
the case of marked morphosyntactic dialect features and in ethnographic circum-
stances of longstanding community stability (and isolation) withstanding major
sociohistorical and contact-based upheaval (Wolfram 1998).

With respect to explanation, Mufwene (1989, 1991) points to markedness

principles rooted in factors such as regularity or invariance of form, statistical
dominance, semantic transparency, perceptual saliency, and simplicity, and
Winford’s contact linguistic model (forthcoming) appeals to general or “uni-
versal’’ cognitive constraints based on ease of perception and production (that
is, learnability). This is not unlike Mufwene’s (1991) markedness model in that
“constraints which appeal to economy, semantic transparency, perceptual sa-
lience, and the like fall into this category’’ (Winford forthcoming: 24). Mean-
while, Thomason/Kaufman (1988) categorize constraints that affect adoption
into typological (typologically similar features will be acquired more easily than
those that are different), naturalness (more marked features are less likely to be
transferred), and implicational constraints (structural feature X, such as affixa-
tion, is dependent upon feature Y, such as lexical borrowing). However, as
Winford (forthcoming) notes, “the task of determining how cognitive, struc-
tural, and non-structural factors interact to determine the linguistic outcomes
of various contact situations is still very much in its infancy’’. Linguistic factors
affecting adoption include markedness, economy, semantic transparency, and
saliency; sociolinguistic considerations include social marking and frequency;
 Walt Wolfram

sociohistorical issues include migration, contact ecology, and population

demographics.
In an attempt to apply and illustrate such structural and non-structural
principles to the historical language contact situation for the longstanding
contact situation in coastal North Carolina, I have shown how the differential
pattern of selective adoption in the African American community may be
accounted for (Wolfram 1998). For example, I conclude that the incidence of
weren’t regularization in Hyde County among older African Americans was
adopted from the contact European American community’s localized variety.
This structure is a marked, localized dialect feature with a reasonably hypothe-
sized connection with British dialects historically. It also occurs with reason-
able frequency and reflects a kind of semantically transparent restructuring
that makes it linguistically suitable for borrowing. And it is not found in other
African American communities. By the same token, I conclude that copula
absence among African Americans in this locale is derived from a contact-
based case of fossilized language learning found among African American
groups. Its likely origin is based on the African contact situation. Independent
development among disparate African American groups is unlikely given the
pervasiveness of the grammatical structure in varieties situated in the African
Diaspora; furthermore, there is no reasonable evidence of copula absence in
the British donor dialects of the area. When the full array of factors is consid-
ered, however, it is reasonable to conclude that earlier English of coastal Afri-
can American speakers in North Carolina indicated a kind of selectivity that
clearly supports a constrained version of the so-called “cafeteria principle’’ of
selectivity (Dillard 1969). The formative dialect of the area included selective
items from an earlier contact variety, localized grammatical features attribut-
able to British dialect retention, and restructured interdialectal items that
resulted from the adaptation of contact-based and British-origin dialect
structures.
More important than the specific attribution of donor sources for partic-
ular structural features is the appeal to a set of structural and non-structural
principles that guide donor dialect attribution. Only as such principles are
developed and tested will some of the outstanding controversies be resolved.
At the same time, the application of such principles to the case of African
American English should benefit the field of historical linguistics, sociolinguis-
tics, and contact linguistics since the establishment of solid documentation,
extraction, and interpretation principles is hardly limited to the study of
African American speech.
 Reconsidering the AAE sociolinguistic agenda 

. On the application of sociolinguistic knowledge

From the onset of study in the 1960s, there has been a commitment to use
sociolinguistic knowledge to address educational and social problems affecting
African Americans in American society, motivated by principles of social com-
mitment such as the principle of error correction, the principle of debt in-
curred (Labov 1982), and the principle of linguistic gratuity (Wolfram 1993).
From the deficit-difference controversies of the 1960s to the Oakland Ebonics
controversy of the late 1990s, little has changed in terms of the debate. Given
the language subordination ideology that has framed so much of the public
discussion of African American speech (Lippi-Green 1997), it is hardly surpris-
ing that progress in some areas of application has been so sluggish. There are
a number of areas of application, none more essential than the attitudes to-
wards AAE often evidenced by educators (Baugh this volume), the public
(Mufwene this volume), and speakers themselves (Mufwene this volume,
Spears this volume). There are also issues of language assessment (Wyatt this
volume), one of the most critical areas for the application of dialect knowledge,
as well as issues related to language arts (Foster this volume), including reading,
writing, and spoken mainstream English. Finally, there are issues related to
dialect awareness in which language variation is considered as a topic of study
in its own right in order to raise the level of understanding and appreciation
for language variation. The levels of application range from personal belief
systems to institutionally based policy issues.
Broad-based attitudes about AAE have been slow to change over the
decades, despite the efforts of some linguists and educators to confront the
negative associations attached to AAE (e.g., Labov 1970; Baugh 1988, this vol-
ume; Lippi-Green 1997). The effects of negative language attitudes are not
simply innocuous manifestations of personal aesthetics; they may affect the
standing of African Americans in American society in ways that range from
self-fulfilling prophecies about low achievement to the “objective’’ classification
of speakers as language disordered and intellectually deficient. At the same
time, however, there is evidence of covert prestige attached to African
American English and a growing sense of cultural identity associated with it, as
indicated in studies such as Fordham/Ogbu (1986) which note the strong
opposition of some urban African American teenagers to the White cultural
values associated with General American English.
One of the positive changes we have witnessed over the decades is the
growing institutional support for recognizing the authenticity of AAE as a
 Walt Wolfram

linguistic system. Statements on students’ dialect rights (National Council of

Teachers of English 1974), position statements on the status of social dialects
(American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 1983), and supportive
resolutions on African American English in response to the Oakland Ebonics
controversy (Linguistic Society of America Resolution 1997; American Associa-
tion for Applied Linguistics 1997) are indicative of these institutional stances.
But the practical effects of such pronouncements on the everyday education of
students and the attitudes of the general public towards AAE have often been
negligible. No incident is more telling of public attitudes than the comments
offered by many political and social leaders during the 1996–7 media blitz over
the Ebonics controversy (see Rickford/Rickford 2000). It is quite indicative of
the broad-based ideology underlying the public reaction that the negative out-
cry crossed political, class, and racial boundaries. In fact, one of the tragic
outcomes of this controversy was its unfortunate validation of an entirely new
genre of racist jokes related to the term ‘Ebonics’ flooding popular culture
(Scott 1998), including the internet (Ronkin/Karn 1999).
The confrontation of negative attitudes remains the biggest hurdle for
speakers of AAE because there is so much social and institutional fallout from
the effects of these attitudes. Students in the schools need to be introduced to
the study of language diversity as a regular part of the educational curriculum,
but the community and general public also need to be exposed to the natural-
ness of linguistic diversity manifested in varieties such as AAE. Thus, public
education through books written for popular audiences (e.g., McWorter 1998,
2000; Rickford/Rickford 2000), TV documentaries, and other informal educa-
tion venues need to be utilized creatively to a much greater degree in an effort
to counter the persistent negative connotations and unfounded myths associ-
ated with African American English. The battle against linguistic racism will
take generations of proactive and persistent confrontation to effect widescale
attitudinal change.
There are also conventional institutionalized domains for the application
of sociolinguistic knowledge. One of the most consequential areas of applica-
tion is assessment, which may tap dimensions of language skill directly (Terrell
1983), or use language to access other areas of competence (Wyatt this vol-
ume). And that often means standardized testing. I’ve often commented on the
fact that standardized testing could be added to taxes and death as one of the
inevitable obligations in our society. Sociolinguists have not been at a loss to
point out the kind of misleading data that may be derive from standardized
testing (e.g., Labov 1976; Wolfram 1976, 1991) and the levels of sociolinguistic
 Reconsidering the AAE sociolinguistic agenda 

interference that range from the social occasion of testing to the choice of
specific language items in the tests. But coming up with alternatives that are
culturally and psychometrically valid is often a long-term process that involves
considerable institutional support, such as funding from testing and govern-
ment agencies vested in the process. Recent funding by the National Institute
of Hearing and Communication Disorders to develop a standardized language
development test for AAE certainly holds promise, but the institutional biases
concerning language use are deeply vested in the assessment process across the
curriculum. The entire basis of language in the evaluation process needs to be
reconsidered (Vaughn-Cooke 1983). On the one hand, we need to encourage
language assessment techniques that consider the universal basis of language,
based on an assumption that the more superficial and limited the scope of lan-
guage capability tapped in a testing instrument, the greater the likelihood that
the instrument will be inappropriate for speakers beyond the immediate popu-
lation on which it was normed (Vaughn-Cooke 1983; Wolfram 1983). On the
other hand, there is an imperative to know how the particular structures of
AAE might influence assessment procedures in a specific way given the current
practices of test administration (Terrell 1983).
There is now a growing awareness on the part of test constructors of the
need to include alternative norms for vernacular dialect speakers due, in part,
to institutional pressures exhibited by agencies such as the American Speech-
Language-Hearing Association (ASHA). This is to be commended. ASHA, as
an organization, has shown significant growth with respect to issues of dialect
diversity over the past several decades as demonstrated by Wyatt’s chapter in
this volume. But this hardly means that we have arrived at dialect-fair assess-
ment. There is a need for continued progress and increased vigilance with re-
spect to issues of equitable language assessment.
Some of the most public and heated controversies have involved reading,
including the well-publicized legal case of the Ann Arbor Decision (1979) in
which the judge ruled in favor of a group of African American children who
brought suit against the Board of Education in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for not
taking their language variety into account in teaching reading. Assessment of
the effects of dialect differences on reading is complex and somewhat elusive,
as are solutions to overcome the disproportionate reading failure among Afri-
can Americans. It is apparent there is a strong correlation between reading
failure and speaking a vernacular variety (see Labov in this volume), but the
precise role of language difference as a possible contributing factor is another
matter. There are many other factors that also correlate with reading failure,
 Walt Wolfram

ranging from the number of books in the home and early socialization into
reading as a pleasurable activity to parental education (Chall/Curtis 1991).
Research-based answers about the effects of structural and functional
variables on the reading process remain very unsettled, as do questions about
effective instructional strategies. It is reasonable to expect that the closer a
person’s spoken language variety is to the language of reading materials, the
easier it would be to learn to read; accordingly, a GAE speaker would be
dialectally advantaged over a vernacular speaker in processing reading mate-
rial. But there are important qualifications, including the general relationship
of spoken language and written language (Wolfram/Adger/Christian 1999:
141). There are many differences between written and spoken language re-
gardless of the speaker’s dialect background, so that differences are a matter
of degree rather than kind. Furthermore, there is no clear-cut evidence that
vernacular English speakers generally have difficulty in comprehending spo-
ken GAE, so that the GAE text of reading should not pose a major linguistic
hurdle. At this point, Labov’s current research (see Labov this volume) points
to possible structural language differences as a primary impediment to the
acquisition of reading skills for vernacular speakers; most researchers con-
tinue to point towards social and cultural conflict as the basis for reading
failure among AAE speakers, following the early and continued lead of Labov
(1972, 1995).
There are also lots of questions related to instructional technique, and some
instructional alternatives have run full cycle. The early, experimental use of
dialect readers — materials that incorporate vernacular dialect into the text —
was largely abandoned, due in a large part to the strong, community-based
opposition to their use on sociopolitical grounds (Wolfram/Adger/Christian
1999: 155). Recently, however, Rickford/Rickford (1995) have argued that it
was a mistake to discard dialect readers and that experimental research on their
effectiveness should be resumed, relying on new ways of introducing and using
dialect readers that would allay people’s wariness of the material. Meanwhile,
other research points towards methods that would connect reading instruction
and materials with the content of indigenous cultural themes for African Amer-
ican adolescents. Some reading programs, on a more advanced level, also have
turned to authors who utilize vernacular dialects in literature, including works
of African American writers who use dialect in their literary works — Richard
Wright, Zora Neale Hurston, Paul Laurence Dunbar, and Toni Morrison,
among others. There is no doubt that cultural and social values about the role
 Reconsidering the AAE sociolinguistic agenda 

of reading in community life may play an enormous role in learning to read

and in developing reading proficiency. Purcell-Gates (1995) observes that these
factors may correlate most highly with reading success. The evidence, then,
suggests that the consideration of reading and language differences must engage
the full range of sociolinguistic context, including cultural experience and social
values.
The issues are just as complex and the answers just as elusive when it
comes to oral language instruction. Some of the underlying issues in teaching
GAE are ideological and some are practical instructional matters. Many peo-
ple would argue that the “social realities’’ of mainstream American society
dictate that all students learn GAE, but such a concern goes to the heart of
educational issues relating to language differences between groups of students.
If it were possible to teach GAE quickly and successfully to groups whose
communities use vernacular varieties, then doing so might provide a rather
simple solution to all the language diversity problems we have mentioned.
However, the answer is not nearly as simple as that. For decades, debate has
ebbed and flowed in the education and applied linguistic literature, as well as
in the popular press, on teaching GAE — the policy of the Oakland Unified
School District Board in its instructional program is just the latest
instantiation of this debate.
One matter to confront relates to equity. Linguistically, AAE and GAE are
equal, so the imposition of GAE is born of linguistic subordination and linguis-
tic prejudice. However, given society’s attitudes, GAE is regarded as a necessary
tool for success at school and in the workplace, and schools should be held
responsible for providing students with this tool.
Another issue that has to be confronted relates to the prospect for success.
Schools have been attempting in one form or another to get all students to
speak GAE for a long time. Yet a lot of people who have gone to school con-
tinue to use vernacular varieties. So we need to confront the relative lack of
success that has typified both formal and informal strategies of teaching GAE.
Why isn’t instruction more successful? There have been many programs that
have been implemented over the past several decades, but the empirically docu-
mented research evidence for widescale success is not very impressive (Wol-
fram/Adger/Christian 1999).
Given the lack of rigorously attested evidence for success in teaching GAE
and the philosophical and practical issues that attend its teaching, concern
should focus on articulating some of the general principles that might promote
 Walt Wolfram

the prospects of success without compromising the sociolinguistic integrity of

speakers. For example, we maintain that GAE programs should observe the
following principles (Wolfram/Adger/Christian 1999: 119–20).
• The teaching of GAE must take into account the importance of the group
reference factor. Students will not be motivated to study a dialect that they
cannot imagine themselves using; but if they see that their own group uses
that dialect for certain purposes or groups that they would like to be in-
cluded in use the dialect, they are more likely to regard dialect development
as a sensible, natural extension of their language knowledge.
• The instructional program for teaching spoken GAE must proceed from
curricular goals that are clearly articulated. For example, if bidialectalism
is a goal, then the materials should emphasize the appropriateness of differ-
ent dialects for different contexts — probably by including contexts where
the vernacular dialect is more appropriate, as well as those where the GAE
dialect might be more acceptable.
• The teaching of GAE should be coupled with information on the nature of
dialect diversity. Providing background information on dialect diversity
will underscore the social basis for dialect evaluation and strengthen the
pragmatic rationale for reinforcing their control of a GAE dialect.
• The teaching of GAE should produce an understanding of the systematic
differences and social marking between the GAE and vernacular forms,
beginning with heavily stigmatized features which affect large classes of
items.
• The dialect of spoken GAE that is taught should be realistic in terms of the
language norms of the community. The goal of instruction should be the
informal GAE dialect of the local community, not a formal dialect of Eng-
lish that is not actually used in the area.
• Language instruction should address interactive norms that typify GAE
speakers at the same time that it respects culturally-based differences in
interactive style. How a person uses language to communicate particular
messages must be considered as an essential part of language deportment
that goes along with the use of particular GAE forms; however, culturally-
based interactive style differences must be respected because they are ap-
propriate in other settings.
It is quite clear that learning GAE is not like learning other educational
skills and it cannot be treated simply as another academic subject. Dimensions
of cultural identity and solidarity are obviously involved (Fordham/Ogbu 1986)
 Reconsidering the AAE sociolinguistic agenda 

and any effective program must be grounded in strategies that thoroughly and
concretely recognize this in its pedagogy.
Finally, knowledge about AAE can be translated into formal and informal
dialect awareness programs throughout the United States, using both tradi-
tional and non-traditional venues for education. By dialect awareness pro-
grams, I mean programs that promote an understanding of and appreciation
for dialect diversity. Such programs may involve a cognitive parameter, which
focuses on patterns of language; an affective parameter, which focuses on lan-
guage attitudes; and a social parameter, which focuses on the role of language
in effective communication. The level of misinformation and prejudice about
language diversity in general and African American speech in particular re-
mains abysmally high; hence there is great need for the adoption of school-
based and community-based language awareness programs. As successful as
university-based elective courses are in spreading the word about language
diversity, they are simply too specialized in their audiences and usually too
technical in their detail to effect wide-scale attitude change with respect to
language variation.
I hasten to add that the need for dialect awareness programs is hardly
restricted to African American varieties, even though the effects of racism
distinguish their situation from some other varieties. In fact, I think it is im-
portant to frame the issues of African American English within the context of
general dialect diversity so that it does not become a linguistic version of the
“Black problem syndrome’’. Dialect diversity is a human phenomenon that
deserves to be recognized across all kinds of sociolinguistic situations. Our
own dialect awareness programs geared towards specific communities always
include the examination of diversity beyond the community so that people
can understand the nature of linguistic diversity in other situations as well
(e.g., Wolfram/Schilling-Estes/Hazen 1996). Furthermore, we have barely
tapped the potential range of entrepreneurial possibilities in implementing
such programs for the general public — books and articles for popular audi-
ences, TV documentaries, videos, compact disks, websites, exhibits, civic and
church group presentations, and so forth. We haven’t exploited the obvious
possibilities at our disposal in public education. For example, it is a curious
but significant omission that the celebration of Black History Month around
the United States rarely if ever includes any discussion of the historical devel-
opment of African American speech, yet it is obviously one of the most signif-
icant of all American English varieties historically and presently. We can cer-
tainly do much more to spread the word, but it also must be done in collabo-
 Walt Wolfram

rative ventures — with writers, producers, media specialists, marketing spe-

cialists, graphic designers, and so forth — in a genuine campaign to educate
the public at large. Discussion of language variation piques the interest of just
about everyone; people will listen if the information is presented in a format
that is appropriate for the audience.

. An agenda for the future

As indicated in the previous sections, much knowledge has been gained in

some areas while other areas remain relatively neglected for one reason or an-
other. In some cases, traditional paradigms of inquiry and application have
channeled research in particular areas to the exclusion of others; in other cases,
broader-based sociopolitical and socioeducational factors have dictated areas
of concern. In this final section, I briefly outline some of the areas that I think
are most critical for future research and application, following the organiza-
tional format of the previous sections.

. Synchronic issues

As much as the definition of African American English has been scrutinized,

we need to return once again to this matter. Linguists, in particular, need to
admit a more broadly based definition that is inclusive of language function
and use along with language structure, that takes into account variation within
the African American community, and that shows sensitivity to dimensions of
labeling. Certainly, some of the chapters in this volume address the issue di-
rectly (Mufwene, Morgan, Zeigler) or simply assume a more functionally based
definition of African American English in the presentation (Foster, Troutman,
Spears, Wyatt).
It is also important to extend the structural range of description beyond the
oft-repeated accounts of segmental structures. For example, earlier studies of
intonation in African American English (Tarone 1973) which were based on
impressionistic accounts need to be subjected to instrumental measurement
now so readily available. And the description of intonation should be extended
across different groups of African Americans, including middle-class speakers
excluded in the traditional profile of vernacular features. In doing so, we
may eventually arrive at a more precise characterization of so-called standard
African American English, a loosely defined but appealing designation that has
 Reconsidering the AAE sociolinguistic agenda 

been floating around for a couple of decades now without exact character-
ization. At the same time, however, the appeal to a “precise’’, reductionist
definition may impose an unwarranted labeling bias in relation to a construct
that is ultimately flexible and situationally negotiated.
The structural segmental features of the vernacular speech of African
Americans certainly seem amply described, as indicated in comprehensive sur-
veys offered by Bailey and Cukor-Avila in this volume, but even they need to
be reconsidered. Over three decades of descriptive concern for AAE have taught
me that one must guard against descriptive complacency based on structural
familiarity, particularly with respect to camouflaged forms (Spears 1982; Baugh
1984). I was recently embarrassed by a graduate student (Tynch 1994) who
insisted he had uncovered examples of conjunctive do, such as Shut the door
tight, do it will blow open, among African Americans in a rural area of Eastern
North Carolina. I denied it — even after listening to the proposed examples —
until it was verified by Trudgill (1997), the writing of Zora Neal Hurton in
Mules and Men (1990), and most embarrassing of all, the Dictionary of Ameri-
can Regional English (Cassidy et al. 1991: 94). I confess this rather humiliating
experience simply to point out the socialized tendency to assume that we now
have uncovered all of the structures to be found in the vernacular varieties of
African American English.
Finally, there is a need for closer examination of style-shifting and code-
switching among African American speakers. The research on style by Rickford/
McNair-Knox (1994) is an important, insightful reference point, but we also
need more ethnographically explicit accounts of shifting that include a range
of African American speakers and settings, particularly focused on speakers
who move fluidly among different ethnic and social groups. As mentioned
previously, it is commonly believed that there is significant code-switching
among African Americans who move between GAE and vernacular communi-
ties, but the particular details of manipulating language form and function in
such social and situational mobility need to be scrutinized in empirical detail.
We still don’t know what variables are manipulated objectively in such shifts
and how they function symbolically in cross-community accommodation. Fur-
thermore, such shifts need to be examined in terms of theoretical models of
code-switching, such as Myers-Scotton’s matrix language theory (1993a, 1993b,
forthcoming) and other models of code-switching (e.g., Poplack 1997). The
study of shifting styles, genres, and systems among African Americans should
inform our general understanding of code-switching on theoretical, descriptive,
and applied levels.
 Walt Wolfram

. Diachronic issues

The databases for examining the genesis and development of earlier African
American English have now been expanded and complemented in significant
ways. Newly uncovered written records of earlier African American language
are emerging on a regular basis, along with tape recordings of ex-slaves and
other speakers born in the antebellum South. These have been complemented
by important studies of transplanted African Americans who live in communi-
ties that are in relative isolation. In the search for diagnostic sociolinguistic data
that might help resolve some of the persistent debate over the status of earlier
African American English, more localized cases of long-term isolation, such as
the one we uncovered along the North Carolina coast (Wolfram/Thomas/Green
2000), also might help unravel some of the mysteries about uniformity and
regionality in earlier African American English.
Isolated, transplanted, and resident communities may shed light on earlier
African American speech, but these communities must be scrutinized in closer
demographic and sociohistorical detail to ensure they represent the vernacular
speech typical of earlier African Americans and, therefore, constitute authentic
cases of relic linguistic communities. There are also rather perplexing cases of
alternative analyses of the same sociolinguistic situation (e.g., Poplack/Sankoff
1987; Hannah 1997), and even the same interviews (Sutcliffe in this volume)
that need to be sorted out. How do we resolve such disputes? Is there a set of
research principles that might be applied? Are there principles of accountability
and reliability that might be exercised? Are there descriptive and explanatory
principles of contact linguistics that can be appealed to in figuring out donor
language attribution? And what constitutes reasonable demographic and
sociohistorical data to bolster arguments about donor language sources? As
noted earlier, the field has made some important progress in terms of these
questions, but answers to some of them are still in the formative stages. We
may never satisfactorily resolve the debates to some people’s satisfaction, but
we can at least clarify the major issues in the debate. That, in itself, is a very
optimistic prospect for the immediate future, though I suspect the controversy
over the historical development of African American English will intensify
further before resolution.

. Application issues

While most of the synchronic and diachronic issues discussed above are in-
tensely debated primarily among a small group of researchers with little fanfare
 Reconsidering the AAE sociolinguistic agenda 

outside of their restricted worlds of specialization, issues of application often

affect large populations in schools and society, therefore stirring much more
public discussion of language issues. This attention is both good and bad. The
good part is that issues of application may provide a unique teaching opportu-
nity, as sociolinguistics gets its 15 minutes of media fame. Of course, the public
exposure is so fleeting and fraught with such misunderstanding that it often
only serves to expose the incredible gap between the public perception and
professional understanding of language diversity (see Rickford/Rickford 2000).
That’s the bad part.
I have already noted the persistent sociolinguistic, socioeducational, and
sociopolitical issues still clouding every area of application, particularly with
respect to language diversity and the acquisition of educational skills such as
reading, spoken GAE, and writing. In some cases, our public presentation of
sociolinguistic “facts’’ about these application issues is not matched by the
empirical research data. We may observe that there is some research evidence
that supports the increase of reading success using dialect readers (Rickford/
Rickford 1995; Rickford 1997), but the evidence does not honestly measure up
to exacting social science standards of research. It is hard to advocate the adop-
tion of programs without providing empirical evidence that they have a reason-
able chance of working. The expertise of sociolinguists in setting forth the re-
search questions needs to be coupled with the expertise of social science re-
searchers in experimental design to provide the kind of data that will move the
agenda of sociolinguistic application forward. More importantly, we want to
be confident that we are not taking unjustified educational and social risks with
the lives of African American school children by advocating programs that
“don’t and won’t work’’. At the same time, some alternatives deserve the right
to be experimented with to see if they do, in fact, provide possible solutions. It
is unfortunate that three decades have now passed since the original call for
experiments with dialect readers (Baratz/Shuy 1969) and that we still lack em-
pirically-based evidence for or against their use. For this reason, I applaud ef-
forts such as the call for renewed research on this alternative by Rickford/
Rickford (1995).
Although there are many unanswered questions in some domains of appli-
cation, there is no doubt about the fundamental patterning that governs
linguistic diversity. As much as linguists bicker among themselves about the
nuances of formal structure and particular analyses of data, they are absolutely
united in their stand concerning the linguistic integrity of African American
English, however it may be defined and wherever it may have come from. Nor
is there much question about the need to combat the unjustified, negative ste-
 Walt Wolfram

reotypes that are associated with African American English. The need for public
education to counter the American dialect mythology can, therefore, be em-
braced without reservation. As noted earlier, we have hardly scratched the sur-
face with respect to dialect awareness programs. Every child in our school sys-
tem, from early childhood forward, deserves the right to learn the truth about
the nature of language diversity just as students deserve to know the truth
about the laws of science and nature. And every citizen in our society deserves
an opportunity to learn, in terms they can understand, about the naturalness
and inevitability of dialect diversity; this certainly includes but is not limited to
African American English.
At this point, many students and citizens aren’t even aware there are alterna-
tive ways of viewing diversity other than those embracing the linguistic inferior-
ity principle that holds that the language of a socially-subordinate group is noth-
ing more than a corrupted version of the language of the socially-dominant
group (Wolfram/Schilling-Estes 1998: 6). I recently encountered a participant
at a public forum who admitted to me after the presentation that he had never
even thought there might be an alternative to viewing vernacular dialects as any-
thing other than “corrupt English’’. I’m not sure he was convinced by my presen-
tation, but at least he is now aware of an alternative that he can consider. The
challenge to provide formal and informal education programs to promote the
understanding of and appreciation for African American English as a natural
outgrowth of the experience of African Americans in American society — with
all its historical and contemporary complexity and diversity — is the biggest
challenge we face because these personal beliefs ultimately fuel our behavior and
institutional programs. The challenge also calls for long-term commitment and
imaginative, non-traditional educational venues. It may seem like a tall order,
but attitudes and perspectives can be changed. I can attest to that personally, as
one who was socialized into a world of linguistic bigotry that was the equal of any
I have ever encountered in my decades of public discussions on this topic. The
challenge is great, but so is the opportunity to affect society in a positive way.

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<TARGET "index" DOCINFO

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Index

1850 census 132, 150 Alabama Ancestors, the Anglicized creole

132, 135, 147, 150
A American Speech-Language-Hearing
(a)busing 246, 256 n. 2 Association 275
a+verb+ing 103, 107 American slavery 326
AAVE-Interface 148, 149 American slave trade [only refernces to
acrolect 135, 137 African slave trade] 321, 329
acts of identity 19 n. 3 American slave descendants 322, 325
Adams, Edward (ECL) 139 American education 328
adjectival verb 133 analogies 283
adjectives (stative, non-stative, participial) anglicist position 55
117, 118, 121 n. 14 anglicist hypothesis 340
adult advocacy 323, 327 Ann Arbor Decision 347
adult advocates 321, 322, 327 apical cluster 306
adult educational advocates 321–3 non-apical cluster 306
affirmative action 328 apparent time 99, 105
African American English (AAE) 2, 7, 13, application 332, 345, 352
21–48, 53–84, 117, 188, 198ff., 205, application issues 331
206 n. 3, 207 n. 13 Arabic 174
Contemporary AAE 131, 139, 152, 153 arhythmic 178
African American Vernacular English assertiveness 213, 219–23
(AAVE) 1, 7, 8, 10, 22, 24, 27–38, assessment 345–7
300–1, 303, 306, 308, 314–15 Atlantic seaboard 139, 150, 151
Modern AA(V)E 131, 148, 163 Atlantic creole 131, 133, 139, 160
African American Women’s Language audience:
(AAWL) 211–13, 222–4, 227–228, co-constructed 190
234, 235 n. 3 corroboration 190
African American communities 322 Austin county 150
African American culture 323 auxiliary deletion 108, 114, 166 n. 4
African American student(s) 295, 319–29 auxiliary guh 135, 165
African Diaspora 174, 340, 344 “bad” English 326, 329
African racial heritage 320
age 4 B
age-graded 111 Bahamian Creole 135
age-grading 267 Bahamian English 48 n. 11
ain’t 105, 109, 119 Bahamians 26
ain’t for didn’t 105, 114, 119 baptismal theory 22, 25
364 Index

basic skills 284 communication disorder 265, 268, 270,

basilectal 334 277
be done 104, 108–9, 115, 120 n. 7 communicative purpose 286
be+V+ing 110, 115, 119 community(ies) 1ff.
Bethany, Adline 132 completer 286
Bethany, James 166 n. 2 conditional marker 133, 152, 156, 158,
bi-racial community 341 158, 158
bidialectal 272, 275 confirmation 134
bilabial fricative 144 Congaree 138, 148, 155
bilingualism 151 Congaree African American English
binuh past continuative marker 135, 162 (CAAE) 140–1
Black, Celia 133, 136, 155, 159, 160 Congaree Swamps 139
Black English 26, 29, 30, 40, 41–3, 45–6 conjunctive do 353
Black problem syndrome 351 consonant deletion 315
Black-White speech relationships 53, consonant cluster 300, 301, 308, 310–15
57–9, 67, 73 constraint issue 342
borderline creole 139, 149, 149, 157, 158 contact:
bourgeie 172 contact with a creole 129, 134–5, 151
Brazilian SWVE 85 n. 17 contact ecology 344
“Brer Rabbit’’ 145 contact issue 342
B(r)uh (Brer) Rabbit 136, 145 contact linguistics 343, 344, 344, 354
“C. F.’’ Chesapeake 150 continuum, fudging 149
convergence — divergence debate 267
C cooperative, collaborative speech 213,
cafeteria principle 344 214–15
call(s) for more research 4 copula 94, 95, 135, 148, 149, 152, 154,
call-and-response 281–96 155, 157, 158, 163, 164
camouflaged constructions 48 n. 16, 135, copula is 264, 265, 270
149, 161, 335, 353 copula absence 94, 95, 103, 108, 109,
Canary Islands Astrophysics Institute 166 114, 116, 117–18, 336, 337, 342,
n. 3 344
capping 219, 221, 231, 282 zero copula 116, 148, 155, 165
Central Africa 174 Core structural features 337–8, 339
Change of Word Class (CWC) 201 coronal stop 300–1
Circularity or prophecy fulfillment 139 cotton, short-staple 59, 67, 85 n. 13
Civil War (American) 59, 64–6, 136, 137, Cotton Kingdom 64, 73
151, 158 counterfactual 336
co-existing grammar(s) 109 cover term 135
co-signing 286 covert prestige 345
Cockney 21, 26, 46 n. 3, 47 n. 7 creative language 282, 283
coda 306 creole 24, 27, 29–30, 46 n. 1, 55, 56, 58,
code 286, 289–91 60, 77
code-switching 270–5, 277, 339, 353 attested for Alabama 132
Columbia, SC 139 contact features 135
 Index 365

creole-leaning 140 recession 338

creole-like system 129ff. rights 346
creolisms 135 Diaspora 27, 34, 174, 340, 344
creolist (position) 55–7 direct discourse 243
creolist hyposthesis 340 direct speech 239, 243–6, 248, 255, 257 n.
CreoLIST Website 166 n. 6 8
fringe 150 directness 240, 243
increased sensitivity to creole 133 definition 243
origins 117, 120 n. 3, 121 n. 13 in education 244, 254, 256
pronoun im 135, 137, 139, 147, 149, discourse pattern 282
159 divergence 56–7
semi-creole 136, 139 Divergence Hypothesis 337
semi-creole range 150 does equative copula 148
variety 136, 139, 150, 151ff. donor dialect 344
crew 190, 191, 192–3 downdrift 141
cultural models 284 downstep 141
cultural identity 338, 345, 350 downstepped high tone 141
culturally-relevant instructional practice DuBois, W. 241, 255
281 duh
culturally-toned diminutives 213, 215, continuative marker 133, 135, 151
217–18 highlighter 155, 156, 159, 162
cussin’ out 240, 246–7 particle 133, 142, 166
‘‘infinitive’’ marker 156
D conditional marker 152, 156, 158
dance 286, 287, 291 hadduh, etc. 130, 153
Daufuskie Island 136 continuative 133
de facto equivalents 149 Linking V2 156, 157
Dealing with Zeke 307 equative copula 148, 157
decoding 301, 303–5, 307, 310, 315 highlighter/focus marker 155, 156, 159,
decreolization 95 162
deficit (position) 56, 84 n. 8
deficit-difference 345 E
definition 332–4, 338, 352, 353 East Texas 129
-dem associative marker 130, 131, 133, East Texas-Louisiana border 134
153, 166 East (Coast) 188, 192, 193, 194, 199, 204
demographic 341, 343–4, 354 Ebonicist (position) 55–6, 84 n. 6
demonstrative them 109, 114, 119 Ebonics 6–8, 27–30, 33, 34, 35, 55, 84 n. 5
designatum 177 Ebonics controversy 345, 346
diachronic issues 331, 339–44, 354 economy 343
dialect 22, 24, 26–7, 28–30 -ed past tense marker 301
Dialect Awareness Programs 351, 356 educational issues 14–17
differences 300, 302, 303, 306 educational malpractice 327, 329
interdialectal items 344 elucidation 134, 143, 144–149
rating scale 265 emotion 171, 173, 178
readers 276, 348, 355 encouraging 286
366 Index

error 304–7, 310–13, 315 going off (on someone) 240, 256 n. 2, 256
ESR corpus 129, 133, 134 n. 4
ESR (Plantation) Mesolect 135, 136 Golden Ghetto 252
ethnic identity 336, 338 grammaticalization 110–11, 188, 198,
Ex-Slave Recordings (ESR) see ESR 199–201, 203
existential it 105 Great Migration 57, 70
explanation issue 342 guh marker 135, 165
explanatory principles 354 Gullah 22–4, 26, 27–31, 33, 34, 36, 46 n. 1,
48 n. 17, 58, 60, 77, 133ff., 174
F Coastal Gullah 136, 139
family 193 Gullah area 129, 130
family resemblance 37 Gullah coast 130
Farakhan, Louis 239 semi-Gullah 150, 151
farm tenancy 64, 70, 73
farm tenancy system 59, 65, 70, 78 H
Faulk, John Henry 131, 132 habitual be 94–5, 110, 114, 115, 119, 267,
figurative language 284, 285 274, 336–8, 342
final cluster 309, 310, 312–14, 316 had+past 110, 111–13, 115, 116, 119
finite/non-finite distinction 138 Harlem “sounders’’ 134
first/second person — s 115 have/had deletion 104
fixin’ to/fitna 104 high tone 141, 142
for to 103, 108, 115 higher-order learning 284
form 286 hinterland 150
fossilized language learning 344 Hip Hop 187ff.
founder principle 343 historic present 166 n. 4, 337–8
founder effect 343 holy dancing 178, 182 n. 3
fuh ‘‘infinitive’’ marker 135, 162 homonymic 174
function 289, 290, 292 homonyms: play with 284
future-in-the-past 148–9 Hughes, Fountain 130, 135, 137, 138, 139,
146, 150, 152–3
G Hurston, Zora Neale 136, 140, 144, 164–6
GeeChee 174 Hyatt Hoodoo texts 72
genderless pronouns 131, 132, 133, 134,
146, 151, 153, 154, 157, 159, 162, I
163 identity 4–6, 12, 13
General American English (GAE) 155, ideological 331, 332, 333, 349
188, 198, 200ff., 319, 322–3 ideology 345, 346
proficiency 322, 323, 329 Igbo 142
generation 4, 9 implicational constraints 343
genesis 339, 341, 342, 354 inceptive get/got to 105
getting real 240, 256 n. 4 indirection 250, 257 n. 7, 284
“Ghosts in the Basement’’ 309 indirectness 257 n. 7, 257 n. 11
Git happy 173, 182 n. 3 individualized Reading Manual (IRM)
Git the spirit 173, 182 n. 3 307, 309, 314
Goals 3–5, 16 inequitable education 326–7
 Index 367

inflectional -s absence 335, 336–7, 338 lexical verb/auxiliary verb distinctions 138
inherent variability 269 Liberian Settler English (LSE) 72
initial cluster 309–14 linguistic:
initial subject pronouns 142 attitudes 320
initial unstressed syllable deletion 267 colonialism 333
initiator 289, 290 equality 329
inner-city schools 300, 302 ethnocentrism 333
instructional uses 282 patronization 333
inter-generational differences 267 prejudice 320, 321, 326
interface: space 139
creole — AAE 148, 149 stereotypes 325–6, 329
ESR — creole 149 structures 284
ESR — Mesolect 135, 147, 149, 150 listener perception 336
intermediate creole 150 “little’’ usage 213, 215–16
internal reconstruction issue 342 localized varieties of English 338, 341
interpretant 177 localized variety 344
interpreter 177 localized dialect norms 338
intervention 310, 311, 313, 316 n. 1 long vowel 303, 304, 307
intonation 352 Los Angeles 329
invariant be 94, 95, 109–11 low tone 141–2
irregular preterites 109, 114, 115, 119 lower working class 264
is for are 95, 108, 109, 119 lower density 150

J M
Jamaican 155, 157 main/subordinate distinction 138
Jamaican creole 141, 142, 149, 157, Mainstream English 335–6, 345, 348–50,
163, 165 353, 355
Japanese 46 n. 3 malpractice 327, 329
Jasper County 150 markedness 343
Jim Crow Laws 23 McCrea 135, 155–7
Johnson, George 135, 161–2 McDonald, Joe 135, 147, 158
McRea, Billy 135, 155–7
L McRae, Colonel 150
lack of raising 138, 153, 164 mechanical recordings 72–3
LAGS 95, 108, 120 n. 2, 121n. 8 mesolectal creole 135, 150
language: metalinguistic awareness 294
acquisition 261, 262–4 meteor storms 132
assessment 345–7 methodological issues 343
forms 294 micro-switches 129, 134, 137, 139, 141,
ideology 187ff. 151
instruction 349, 350 middle class 264, 267
minority students 320 minority students 320, 323, 326, 328, 329
latching 219–20 miseducation 329
Ledbetter, Bob 135, 155, 157–8 Mississippi 132, 150, 166 n. 2
less we+verb construction 138, 153 Mississippi Delta 135
368 Index

Mississippi (River) 150 phonemic vowel length or vowel length

mode 289–90 145–6
morphophonemic awareness 315 phonemic awareness 294, 315
motivation 4, 5, 19 n. 2 phonological relationships 78–83
Mrs. P. 146 Plains Indians 162, 166 n. 1
multiple modals 109, 115 plantations 58, 60, 65–6, 67, 85 n. 14
multiple negation 119 plantation agriculture 59, 60, 65
music 286, 287, 290 playing the dozens 239, 240, 246, 251, 282
Muslim(s) 174, 182 n.4 plural -s 264
plural verbal -s 115
N polysemic 174, 176
narrow diphthongs 146 positive expectation 133
naturalness 343 possible selves 4, 5, 19 n. 2
neutralization 245 poverty 325
New Word(s) 200–1 preschool-aged AAVE speakers 265, 269,
Niger-Congo 26–7 271, 272
non-initial subject pronouns 142 principle of linguistic gratuity 345
normalization 245 principle of error correction 345
North Carolina 150 principle of debt incurred 345
Northern cities 57, 66, 85 n. 20 principles of language use 246
Northern urban 266 professional educators 320, 321, 322,
Nova Scotia 340 323–4
NP/PRO 121 n. 10, 13 prosodic features 333
nuh negator 135 public education 346, 351, 356

O Q
Oakland Unified School District 17, Quarterman, Wallace 130, 135, 136, 141,
322–3, 327 144, 149
Oakland Ebonics controversy see Ebonics
controversy R
obscenity 239, 243–5, 247, 252 racial:
oral tradition 151 attitudes 320
prejudice 320, 329
P racism 319, 323
parallelism 283 segregation 320
parsing 144, 144 rap 243
past: “Ray and His Cat Come Down’’ 310
past habitual would 108, 115 reading 299ff., 347–8, 349, 355
past marker 133, 135, 148, 149, 154, reading dialect 213, 216–17, 224, 232
156, 160, 161, 164, 165, 166 reading people 240, 247
past tense -ed 264 real time 99
past tense be regularization 342, 344 recessive feature 108
perfective been 108, 109 recessive local dialect features 338
performance 218, 223, 233 Reclaimed Words (RCW) 201, 203, 207 n.
Philadelphia 329 16
 Index 369

“Recognizing’’ 194, 205 Shaolin Family 193, 195, 206 n. 7

Reduced Word(s) (RW, RWS) 201–4 sharecropping 65, 85 n. 15
regional variation 331, 336–8 short vowel 303, 304, 307
relative pronouns 108 short-term memory 139
relative pitch 144 shout song 176
relexification 174, 175 Shout(‘in’) 169ff.
relic linguistic communities 340, 354 shouteme(s) 177, 178
remodeling 139, 148–9, 152, 153 sign 177, 178–81
repeat subject 139, 152 signifier 177
repetition 138, 146–9, 286, 295 signifying 212, 213, 222, 223, 232–4, 250,
with variation 286, 295 282, 284, 285
reported speech 213–14 silent -e rule 303–5, 307, 310, 312–3
resilience 4, 5 simplification of initial consonant clusters
resultive be done 335, 337 144–5
rhyme 283, 285 site studies 120 n. 5
rhythm 283, 285 Skidaway Island 130, 136
rhythmic language 282 slavery 320, 321, 326
rhythmic 175, 176, 177, 178 Smalley, Laura 130, 131–2, 133, 135, 146,
Ring dance 174 148–9, 150, 153–5
Ring shout 175, 176, 178, 180 Smalley, Laura, mother of 131, 150
routines 290, 294 Smith, Harriett 135, 155, 161
RX program 307 Smith, Charlie 130, 131, 135, 136, 146–7,
155, 159–60
S snapping 240
saliency 343 social issues 4, 7
Samaná 72, 340–1 sociocultural (context) 1ff.
saut 174 socioeconomic (status, class) 264–5, 267,
scripted 290, 292 268
Sea Islands Gullah 142, 156 sociohistorical 334, 341, 343–4, 354
second-dialect instruction 262, 268, 269 sociohistorical contexts 1ff., 53, 57–70,
second-dialect learning 273, 275–7 84
segregation 23 sounding 282
self-efficacy 4, 5, 19 n. 1 South Carolina 150, 151, 165
semantics: South Carolina Midlands 139, 151, 165
extension 198 South
inversion 198 interior 57, 59, 67
license 249–50, 257 n. 10 post-Civil War cotton 65, 70, 78, 83, 84
rural 57, 58, 65, 66, 67, 85 n. 16
T
transparency 343, 344 U
semiosis 177 Upper, 58, 59, 60, 67
sensitivity to creole 133 Southern Shift, 77, 78
sentence-final tag 142 Southeastern tribes 132
serial verb 131, 133, 138, 152, 155, 161 Southern White Vernacular English
serialization 138 (SWVE) 55, 74–83, 93ff.
370 Index

Southern Atlantic States 139 tone as a tool 143

Southern rural 266 transition issue 342
speech acts 171, 172–3 transmission issue 342
speech and language disorder 265 tripartite functions of classroom discourse
speech therapy 270 283
speech community: typological 343
hip Hop 187–205 U. S. Ebonics, USEB see Ebonics
crews 188, 190, 191, 193–4, 196, 206 n. uh continuative marker 138, 147, 149,
9 152, 154, 159, 161, 164, 166
long-term members (LTs), 191 United States 320–1, 326
speech-and-language tests 270 unmarked preterites 109, 114, 115, 119
spelling ideology 202–4 unmarked pasts 166 n. 4
Springville 73, 85 n. 18, 99–113 upstepped high tone 141, 142
Standard African-American English 334, urban areas 66
352–3
standard English see General American V
English variable rules 269, 277
standardized testing 346 vehicle 177
Stars Fell narrative 131, 150, 162 verification 134, 143, 144–9
stigmatization 23, 33, 36–7, 47 n. 17 vernacular 5, 8, 24–5, 27, 30–1
Stoddard, Albert 136, 139 sense of 34–6
Stomp 177, 178, 181 Virginia 137, 150, 151
stop + liquid initial clusters 145, 156 vocabulary 304, 307, 316 n. 2
stress/intonation 265, 274 active 301, 303
student responsibilities 319, 321, 324–5 development 294
style shifting 109, 273–4, 339, 353 vowel:
subject pronoun of relative clauses 142 pair 311–13
successive finite verbs 138 length 145
suh copula 135, 154, 157 space 57, 78, 80, 84
synchronic issues 332–9, 352–3 systems 342
-t, -d deletion 300
talk: W
smart talk 213, 222–3, 230, 231, 233, was for were 109, 115
234 we 175
sweet talk 222, 223 weren’t regularization 344
talking Black 32, 35, 38, 45 West Africa 174, 175
talking that talk 213, 223–34 West (Coast) 188, 192–3, 194, 197, 199,
trash talk(ing) 239, 240 204
teaching of General American English White vernaculars 55, 57
349–50 White speech 55, 57, 58, 74, 78, 84 n. 3, 339
tense, mood, and aspect 342 White Vernacular English (WVE)
third person singular -s 119, 267, 335, 336, White culture 339
342 Wilmington, NC 140
tone 142–4 word play 284
tonal patterns 142 Word 187, 204, 205
</TARGET "index">

Index 371

World War I (WWI) [nothing is said Z

about WWI] zero plural/second person singular copula
World War II (WWII) [nothing is said absence 104
about WWII] zero plural -s 105
would deletion 103 zero possessive -s 105
WPA Ex-slave narratives 71–2, 73 zero third person singular -s 104, 108, 115
written language 348
written corpora 340
Wu-Tang Clan 193, 194–5

Y
y’all 104
Yoruba 142, 175
yunuh [‘yunu’ in text] 135, 145, 146, 148,
155
In the series VARIETIES OF ENGLISH AROUND THE WORLD (VEAW) the following
titles have been published thus far:
G1. LANHAM, L.W. & C.A. MaCDONALD: The Standard in South African English and
its Social History. Heidelberg (Groos), 1979.
G2. DAY, R.R (ed.): Issues in English Creoles: Papers from the 1975 Hawaii Conference.
Heidelberg (Groos), 1980.
G3. VIERECK, Wolfgang, Edgar SCHNEIDER & Manfred GÖRLACH (comps): A Bibli-
ography of Writings on Varieties of English, 1965-1983. 1984.
G4. VIERECK, Wolfgang (ed.): Focus on: England and Wales. 1984.
G5. GÖRLACH, Manfred (ed.): Focus on: Scotland. 1985.
G6. PETYT, K.M.: ‘Dialect’ and ‘Accent’ in Industrial West Yorkshire. 1985.
G7. PENFIELD, Joyce & Jack ORNSTEIN-GALICIA: Chicano English. 1985.
G8. GÖRLACH, Manfred and John A. HOLM (eds): Focus on the Caribbean. 1986.
G9. GÖRLACH, Manfred: Englishes. Studies in varieties of English 1984-1988. 1991.
G10. FISCHER, Andreas and Daniel AMMAN: An Index to Dialect Maps of Great Britain.
1991.
G11. CLARKE, Sandra (ed.): Focus on Canada. 1993.
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T1. TODD, Loreto: Cameroon. Heidelberg (Groos), 1982. Spoken examples on tape (ca. 56
min.)
T2. HOLM, John: Central American English. Heidelberg (Groos), 1982. Spoken examples
on tape (ca. 92 min.)
T3. MACAFEE, Caroline: Glasgow. 1983. Spoken examples on tape (ca. 60 min.)
T4. PLATT, John, Heidi WEBER & Mian Lian HO: Singapore and Malaysia. 1983.
T5. WAKELIN, Martyn F.: The Southwest of England. 1986. Spoken examples on tape (ca.
60 min.)
T6. WINER, Lise: Trinidad and Tobago. 1993. Spoken examples on tape.
T7. MEHROTRA, Raja Ram: Indian English. Texts and Interpretation. 1998.