Dialectal Division of American English

Dialectal Division of American English

Black English: a language that deserves to be recognized Whereas the majority of United States dialects are, to a great extent, free from stigma, Inner City English (ICE) has been a victim or prejudicial ignorance. BE is spoken by a large section of non-middle-class African American population. ICE has traditionally been called BLACK ENGLISH –BE and has been stigmatized and referred to as Negro English or Non-Standard Negro English. The historical discrimination against black Americans has created ghetto living and segregated schools and this discrimination has also been passed onto the language

Black English: a language that deserves to be recognized To many BE is a sign of inferior “genetic” intelligence and “cultural deprivation”, justifying these incorrect notions by stating that BE is a “deficient, illogical, and incomplete language. Such epithets cannot be applied to any language, and they are as unscientific in reference to BE as to British English itself. In recent years, for many African Americans their dialect has become a means of positive black identification;

Black English: a language that deserves to be recognized Black English has the same linguistic status as any other variety of English: British English, New England English, Texan English, etc.; Standard American English SAE is constantly enriched by words, phrases, and usage originating in Back English; and BE, whatever its origins, is influenced by the changes that go on in the many other dialects of English.

Black English: Some phonological features Consonant Cluster Simplification: a regular phonological rule in BE and not in SAE simplifies consonant clusters at the end of words when one of the two consonants is an alveolar /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/. The application of this rule may delete the past-tense morpheme so past /st/and passed /sd/ are both pronounced like pass [pas]. Thus, (1) I pass the test yesterday BE pass passed past are pronounced alike [pæs]

Black English: Some phonological features Consonant Cluster Simplification: When speakers of BE said a sentence such as this, they are not showing ignorance of past and present, but pronouncing the past tense according to the rule present in their grammars. Similar to SAE (2) I hit the ball yesterday. Because of this deletion rule, meant and mend are both pronounced as men.

Black English: Some phonological features Deletion of /r/ A number of dialects of British and American English delete /r/ except before a vowel. BE has the same rule. Thus, pairs of words like guard and god are pronounced identically. Others include: sore saw poor pa fort fought Some words that do not rhyme in SAE do rhyme in BE: yeah fair idea fear Paris pass Some speakers delete /l/ creating homophones like: toll toe all awe help hep

Black English: Some phonological features Reduction of vowels In BE, the phonemic distinction between /aj/ and /wa/ has been lost, both having become /a/. Thus, why and wow are pronounced [wa]. Change of final voiceless th /θ/ to f Thus, Ruth is pronounced /ruf/ and death /dɛf/

Black English: Some SYNTACTIC features Differences between SAE and BE It is the syntactic differences that reveal the complexity of Black English. The following are some characteristics SAE BE

Black English: Some SYNTACTIC features To be: wherever the standard can use a contraction (he + is  he’s), BE can delete the form. In BE however, and inflected form of ‘be’ is required if the speaker is referring to habitual action

Black English: Some SYNTACTIC features “John is happy” can be interpreted to mean John is happy at the moment and may be constantly happy. To make this distinction SAE will use: John is always happy.

Black English: Some SYNTACTIC features Another regular rule in BE deletes the possessive morpheme -‘s whenever possession is redundantly specified by word order: (note the difference in word order John+house. Possession word order is different in the asterisked sentences house+John).

Black English: Other features double negatives (he ain’t got none) double comparatives and superlatives (more bigger, most biggest, gooder, bestest) over-regularize the past tense (stoled or stealed) over-regularize plurals (mouses, sheeps, childrens)