Starting with “Negro English” or “Black Speech”, these were the first denominations that African American English had. It has to do with the period of time to which they belonged, as at this time colored people would be also designated as “Negro”. It has also been labeled as “Black communication”, which makes more sense than the other two as, at least, this label is referring to the communication patterns, or the communication features, that could be found in the black speech. Also following the same rules as “Black communication” we find: “Black street speech”. This label denotes a nonstandard dialect that thrives from the black street culture. “A variety constantly fluctuating, as new terminology flows in and out of colloquial vogue.” (Finegan
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The vowel system changes quite a lot. In Philadelphia, for instance there is a tendency to mix the vowel in “merry” with the one in “Murray”, a feature we will see is also common in other American dialects. Other general aspect of Midland accent is that of monophthongization8. They tend to monophthongize diphthongs as the one in “eye” – [aɪ] – pronouncing them as the vowel in “hot” – [Ʌ]. They also tend to do something similar to this, changing the diphthong in “house” to the one they should pronounce in “eye”, converting such words as “mouse” and “mice” in homonyms9. Although there has not been much research around this area, maybe because of its extension, it seems that it is influenced by accents such as the Southern or, in other regions, by the Northern. The influence of these two accents makes this particular one highly recognizable and also at the same time not very well seen by the people who do not share its …show more content…
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For a better understanding of the African American English dialect, the next part of the investigation was focused on its main features and the sociolinguistic consequences they have.
Finally, to conclude the research we focused on the educational aspects and the controversy that surrounded the African American English. Particularly we centered on the Oakland resolution of 1996 and 1997. Regarding the discussion of this topic, we conclude that this resolution was completely inappropriate. This resolution had the purpose of unifying the African American English children with the rest of society. However, we saw how it encouraged a certain black supremacy, or white discrimination, that separated the two position even more.
Furthermore, the information that this resolution shared lacked corroboration, as it misused terms such as “Ebonics”, or treated African American English as language “genetically apart” from English. These topics we concluded that were completely mistaken in our research, for that we said that the Oakland resolution was
The vowel system changes quite a lot. In Philadelphia, for instance there is a tendency to mix the vowel in “merry” with the one in “Murray”, a feature we will see is also common in other American dialects. Other general aspect of Midland accent is that of monophthongization8. They tend to monophthongize diphthongs as the one in “eye” – [aɪ] – pronouncing them as the vowel in “hot” – [Ʌ]. They also tend to do something similar to this, changing the diphthong in “house” to the one they should pronounce in “eye”, converting such words as “mouse” and “mice” in homonyms9. Although there has not been much research around this area, maybe because of its extension, it seems that it is influenced by accents such as the Southern or, in other regions, by the Northern. The influence of these two accents makes this particular one highly recognizable and also at the same time not very well seen by the people who do not share its …show more content…
30!
For a better understanding of the African American English dialect, the next part of the investigation was focused on its main features and the sociolinguistic consequences they have.
Finally, to conclude the research we focused on the educational aspects and the controversy that surrounded the African American English. Particularly we centered on the Oakland resolution of 1996 and 1997. Regarding the discussion of this topic, we conclude that this resolution was completely inappropriate. This resolution had the purpose of unifying the African American English children with the rest of society. However, we saw how it encouraged a certain black supremacy, or white discrimination, that separated the two position even more.
Furthermore, the information that this resolution shared lacked corroboration, as it misused terms such as “Ebonics”, or treated African American English as language “genetically apart” from English. These topics we concluded that were completely mistaken in our research, for that we said that the Oakland resolution was