Language in African American Communities is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the language, culture, and sociohistorical contexts of African American communities. It will also benefit those with a general interest in language and culture, language and language users, and language and identity. This book includes discussions of traditional and non-traditional topics regarding linguistic explorations of African American communities that include difficult conversations around race and racism. Language in African American Communities provides:
• an introduction to the sociolinguistic and paralinguistic aspects of language use in African American communities; sociocultural and historical contexts and development; notions about grammar and discourse; the significance of naming and the pall of race and racism in discussions and research of language variation and change;
• activities and discussion questions which invite readers to consider their own perspectives on language use in African American communities and how it manifests in their own lives and communities; and
• links to relevant videos, stories, music, and digital media that represent language use in African American communities.
Written in an approachable, conversational style that uses the author’s native African American (Women’s) Language, this book is aimed at college students and others with little or no prior knowledge of linguistics.
Contents
List of Tables and Figures
Acknowledgements
International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) for English in the Continental U.S.
Chapter 1: Talkin and Testifyin
Introduction: My Subjectivities and Positionalities
Name a Thing a Thing: About Definitions and Naming
What to Expect
Questions, Discussion, and Further Inquiry
References
Filmography
Discography
Digital Media
Chapter 2: A Seat at the Table: What Are You Bringing to the Table Before We Even Get Started?
Introduction: Real Talk
Linguistic Prejudice
Linguistic Shame and Denial
Linguistic Pride and Acceptance
Contradictions and All
What You’re Not Going to Do: Definitions, Naming, and Pet Peeves
To HEL—or HEC—and Back: The Messiness of Having the Army and the Navy
Questions, Discussion, and Further Inquiry
References
Filmography
Discography
Digital Media
Chapter 3: "Put Some Respeck on My Name!": Language and Uses of Identity in African American Communities
Introduction: How We Gon Play This?
Who Do People Say That I Am?
A Word on Ebonics
What Does It Feel Like to Be a Problem?
Say My Name!
Questions, Discussion, and Further Inquiry
References
Filmography
Digital Media
Chapter 4: "Where Your People From?:" Problematizing Origins and Development
Introduction: Controversial History, Development, and Contested Origins
The Deficit Hypothesis
(Neo–)Anglicist and (Neo–)Creolist Origins Hypotheses
Consensus Hypotheses: Substratist, Restructuralist, and Ecological
The Divergence/Convergence Hypothesis
My Conclusion: PeriodT!
Questions, Discussion, and Further Inquiry
References
Filmography
Discography
Chapter 5: What’s Good? A Concise Descriptivist Meta–Grammar of Language Use in African American Communities
Introduction: We Bout to Ride Up on This Elephant
Why Y’all so Interested in Language Use in African American Communities?
Patterns, Systems, and Structure, Oh My!
Lexical Level: Word Classes and Word Formation
Syntactic Level, Part 1: Verbal Markers
Syntactic Level, Part 2: From Multiple Negation to Patterns in Question Formation
Morphosyntactic Level: Inflections
Phonological Level
Speech Events, Discourse, Pragmatics, Nonverbal, and Paralinguistic Levels
Where Does This Leave Us?
Questions, Discussions, and Further Inquiry
References
Digital Media
Chapter 6: Where Your People At?: Regional and Geographic Variation
Introduction: A New Day Is Dawning
Gullah Geechee
Urban and Rural
CORAAL, et al.
From Regional to Social Variation
Questions, Discussion, and Further Inquiry
References
Filmography
Digital Media
Chapter 7: Where My Shawty’s At? Social and Gendered Variation
Introduction: It’s about to Be Lit Up in Here
Black American Sign Language, or Black ASL
Standards in Language Use in African American Communities
Middle–Class Language Use in African American Communities
African American Women’s Language, or AAWL
Hip Hop Nation Language, or HHNL
Sexuality and Gendered Identity in Language Use in African American Communities
Questions, Discussion, and Further Inquiry
References
Filmography
Discography
Digital Media
Chapter 8: This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Pop Culture, Social Media, and Digital Media
Introduction: Whatcha Know Good?
Afrofuturism and Ebonics
Ya Man, Steve Harvey: Blacktainment Extraordinaire
The Queen of Soul to Spoken Soul
Black Twitter and Language Use in African American Communities
Digital Media and the Performance of Language Use in African American Communities
I Refuse to Eat the Cake
Questions, Discussion, and Further Inquiry
References
Filmography
Discography
Digital Media
Chapter 9: It’s Not the Shoes, Bruh! You Black!: African American Language Use in AmeriKKKa’s Educational ApparatU.S.
Introduction: That’s the Way of the World
How and When We Enter White Educational Spaces … and Some Definitions
We Ain’t Havin It!: Let’s Get on the Good Foot
We Come from a Remarkable People
The Research: Language and Linguistic Justice for Black Children
Language of Black America on Trial: The Ann Arbor "Black English" Trial and the Oakland Ebonics Controversy
As My Dad Would Say, "Stop Pussyfootin Roun the Issue:" Because Racism
Questions and Further Inquiry
References
Filmography
Discography
Digital Media
Chapter 10: "If You Don’t Know Me by Now …"
Introduction: You Cain’t Do Wrong and Get By
Things I Didn’t Discuss that You Might Consider
Whatcha Know Good?: What I Hope You Did, Learned, and Hope to Do
Questions, Discussion, and Further Inquiry
References
Discography
Index
Biography
Sonja Lanehart is Professor of Linguistics; Teaching, Learning and Sociocultural Studies; and Africana Studies at the University of Arizona, USA. Her scholarship focuses on language and education in African American and Black communities; language and identity; sociolinguistics; raciolinguistics; and critical sociolinguistics from Black feminisms, critical race theory, critical discourse analysis, and intersectionality perspectives. She is particularly interested in African American Women’s Language and pushing the boundaries of research in sociolinguistics, language variation, and education to be anti-racist, inclusive, diverse, and equitable in the fight for social and linguistic justice. Her publications include Sista, Speak! Black Women Kinfolk Talk about Language and Literacy (2002); African American Women’s Language: Discourse, Education, and Identity (ed., 2009); and The Oxford Handbook of African American Language (ed., 2015).
This is a splendid book, fully recognizing that language is a social, cultural, psychological, grammatical, homeland-based, and historical package. Language in African American Communities is brimming with the worldview, turns-of-phrase, and even the musical backdrop of our Blacktalk, which is permeated with the feelings, perspectives, and positionalities of its lifelong speakers. You can speak AAL grammatically, but that doesn’t mean you can Blacktalk. Sonja L. Lanehart in this book generously presents an introduction to Ebonics as a form of language, action, and social being.
Arthur K. Spears, Presidential Professor of Linguistics and Anthropology Emeritus, The City University of New York
No one is better qualified to write this book than Sonja Lanehart, the Queen of innovative research and publication on language in African American communities over the past two decades! I wish I were still teaching to take advantage of Sonja’s lively personal style, her professional insights and her thought-provoking questions following each chapter!
John R. Rickford, J.E. Wallace Sterling Professor of Humanities, Dept of Linguistics, emeritus, Stanford University
