T h e Ox f o r d H a n d b o o k o f A F R IC A N A M E R IC A N L A N G UAG E 1 The Oxford Handbook of AFRICAN AMERICAN LANGUAGE Edited by SONJA LANEHART 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file at the Library of Congress ISBN 978–0–19–979539–0 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Contents List of Figures xi List of Tables xvii Acknowledgments xxi About the Editor xxiii List of Contributors xxv Language Use in African American Communities: An Introduction 1 Sonja Lanehart and Ayesha M. Malik PA RT I OR IG I N S A N D H I S TOR IC A L P E R SP E C T I V E S 1. The English Origins Hypothesis 23 Gerard Van Herk 2. The Creole Origins Hypothesis 35 John R. Rickford 3. The Emergence of African American English: Monogenetic or Polygenetic? With or Without “Decreolization”? Under How Much Substrate Influence? 57 Salikoko S. Mufwene 4. The Origins of African American Vernacular English: Beginnings 85 Donald Winford 5. African American English over Yonder: The Language of the Liberian Settler Community 105 John Victor Singler 6. Documenting the History of African American Vernacular English: A Survey and Assessment of Sources and Results 125 Edgar W. Schneider vi Contents 7. Regionality in the Development of African American English 140 Walt Wolfram and Mary E. Kohn PA RT I I L E C T S A N D VA R IAT ION 8. The Place of Gullah in the African American Linguistic Continuum 163 Tracey L. Weldon and Simanique Moody 9. Rural Texas African American Vernacular English 181 Patricia Cukor-Avila and Guy Bailey 10. African American English in the Mississippi Delta: A Case Study of Copula Absence and r-Lessness in the Speech of African American Women in Coahoma County 201 Rose Wilkerson 11. African American Voices in Atlanta 219 William A. Kretzschmar, Jr 12. African American Language in Pittsburgh and the Lower Susquehanna Valley 236 Jennifer Bloomquist and Shelome Gooden 13. African American Phonology in a Philadelphia Community 256 William Labov and Sabriya Fisher 14. African American Language in New York City 280 Renée Blake, Cara Shousterman, and Luiza Newlin-Łukowicz 15. African American Vernacular English in California: Over Four Decades of Vibrant Variationist Research 299 John R. Rickford 16. The Black ASL (American Sign Language) Project: An Overview 316 Joseph Hill, Carolyn McCaskill, Robert Bayley, and Ceil Lucas 17. The Sociolinguistic Construction of African American Language 338 Walt Wolfram Contents vii PA RT I I I ST RU C T U R E A N D DE S C R I P T ION 18. Syntax and Semantics in African American English 355 Lisa J. Green and Walter Sistrunk 19. The Systematic Marking of Tense, Modality, and Aspect in African American Language 371 Charles E. DeBose 20. On the Syntax-Prosody Interface in African American English 387 James A. Walker 21. Segmental Phonology of African American English 403 Erik R. Thomas and Guy Bailey 22. Prosodic Features of African American English 420 Erik R. Thomas PA RT I V C H I L D L A N G UAG E AC Q U I SI T ION A N D DE V E L OP M E N T 23. Language Acquisition in the African American Child: Prior to Age Four 439 Brandi L. Newkirk-Turner, RaMonda Horton, and Ida J. Stockman 24. The Development of African American English through Childhood and Adolescence 454 Janneke Van Hofwegen 25. Development of Variation in Child African American English 475 Lisa J. Green and Jessica White-Sustaíta 26. Narrative Structures of African American Children: Commonalities and Differences 492 Tempii B. Champion and Allyssa McCabe 27. Some Similarities and Differences between African American English and Southern White English in Children 512 Janna B. Oetting viii Contents 28. Assessing the Language Skills of African American English Child Speakers: Current Approaches and Perspectives 526 Toya A. Wyatt PA RT V E DU C AT ION 29. African American Language and Education: History and Controversy in the Twentieth Century 547 Geneva Smitherman 30. Managing Two Varieties: Code-Switching in the Educational Context 566 Monique T. Mills and Julie A. Washington 31. Balancing Pedagogy with Theory: The Infusion of African American Language Research into Everyday Pre-K–12 Teaching Practices 582 Sharroky Hollie, Tamara Butler, and Jamila Gillenwaters 32. History of Research on Multiliteracies and Hip Hop Pedagogy: A Critical Review 603 K. C. Nat Turner and Tyson L. Rose 33. African American Vernacular English and Reading 617 William Labov and Bettina Baker 34. Dialect Switching and Mathematical Reasoning Tests: Implications for Early Educational Achievement 637 J. Michael Terry, Randall Hendrick, Evangelos Evangelou, and Richard L. Smith 35. Beyond Bidialectalism: Language Planning and Policies for African American Students 659 John Baugh PA RT V I L A N G UAG E I N S O C I E T Y 36. African American Church Language 677 Charles E. DeBose 37. The (Re)turn to Remus Orthography: The Voices of African American Language in American Literature 691 James Braxton Peterson Contents ix 38. African American Language and Black Poetry 706 Howard Rambsy II and Briana Whiteside 39. African American Divas of Comedy: Staking a Claim in Public Space 723 Jacquelyn Rahman 40. The Construction of Ethnicity via Voicing: African American English in Children’s Animated Film 740 Jennifer Bloomquist 41. SWB (Speaking while Black): Linguistic Profiling and Discrimination Based on Speech as a Surrogate for Race against Speakers of African American Vernacular English 755 John Baugh PA RT V I I L A N G UAG E A N D I DE N T I T Y 42. Racializing Language: Unpacking Linguistic Approaches to Attitudes about Race and Speech 773 Kate T. Anderson 43. African American Standard English 786 Arthur K. Spears 44. African American English in the Middle Class 800 Erica Britt and Tracey L. Weldon 45. African American Women’s Language: Mother Tongues Untied 817 Marcyliena Morgan 46. Black Masculine Language 834 David E. Kirkland 47. Hip Hop Nation Language: Localization and Globalization 850 H. Samy Alim 48. African American Language and Identity: Contradictions and Conundrums 863 Sonja Lanehart Author Index 881 Subject Index 897 List of Figures 2.1 Copula absence in contemporary AAVE 43 2.2 Copula absence in Creoles 43 5.1 Map of Liberia, within West Africa 106 5.2 Map of Liberia with cities 107 7.1 Regional contexts of AAL described in North Carolina by the staff of North Carolina Language and Life Project (NCLLP) 144 7.2 Comparison of postvocalic r-lessness in regionally situated communities in North Carolina 145 7.3 Comparison of –s absence in regionally situated communities in North Carolina 146 7.4a Regional reduction and AAE intensification: The Hyde County (Eastern NC) trajectory 152 7.4b AAE reduction and regional dialect maintenance: The Beech Bottom trajectory (Appalachian NC) 152 7.4c The curvilinear model: Texana (Appalachian NC)/Roanoke Island (Eastern NC) 8.1 Estimated population percentages for South Carolina (east of the mountains) from 1685 to 1790 168 8.2 Estimated population percentages for Creeks/Georgia/Alabama from 1685 to 1790 169 9.1 Percentage of first and second singular and plural verbal – s over time in five cohorts of Springville speakers 185 9.2 Percentage of all invariant be forms derived from will / would deletion over time 187 9.3 Decrease of is for are over time for rural AAVE speakers 188 9.4 Percentage of third singular verbal – s over time in rural AAVE 190 9.5 Factors affecting the copula in pre–World War II AAVE, along with the preferred form in the environment 191 9.6 Factors affecting the copula in post–World War II AAVE, along with the preferred form in the environment 192 xii list of Figures 9.7 Comparison of the effects of following grammatical environment on copula absence for pre– and post–World War II speakers 193 9.8 Percentage of invariant be not derived from will / would deletion that is habitual 194 9.9 Percentage of invariant be not derived from will / would deletion that occurs before V+– ing 195 9.10 Expansion of innovative had + past (percentage of had + past as a simple past out of all past tense forms) 195 9.11 Distribution of quotatives over six cohorts of Springville AAVE speakers 196 11.1 The “Southern Shift” 225 11.2 Atlanta African American male vowel means versus Kent and Read national means 229 11.3 Atlanta African American female vowel means versus Kent and Read national means 229 11.4 Roswell African American male front vowel means versus Atlanta means 231 11.5 Roswell African American female front vowel means versus Atlanta means 232 12.1 Mean frequencies (Hz; normalized; ERB) of the first (F1) and second (F2) formants for all speakers in the sample 248 13.1 The African American vowel system in Detroit, with short– a approximating the position of short– e 258 13.2 Philadelphia Neighborhood Corpus subjects analyzed for the current study by race, date of birth, and year of interview 259 13.3 Locally weighted regression analyses of two nonsalient Philadelphia sound changes by date of birth and race 260 13.4 Locally weighted regression analyses of two back upgliding Philadelphia sound changes in Philadelphia by date of birth and race. /aw/ (in south, out, down ) and /owC/ (in road, goat, phone ) 261 13.5 Locally weighted regression analyses of two ingliding Philadelphia sound changes in Philadelphia by date of birth and race. /æh/ (in man, bath, mad ) and /oh/ (in water, talk, off ) 262 13.6 Locally weighted regression analyses of tense and lax short– a classes in Philadelphia by date of birth for Whites and African Americans 264 13.7 Traditional short– a split in the speech of Jean B., 60 [2006] 264 13.8 Distribution of bimodality values of Ashman’s D for /æh/ versus /æ/ for PNC speakers with more than 7 tokens of /æh/ 266 13.9 The nasal system of Alex P., U. of Pennsylvania freshman [2012] 266 list of Figures xiii 13.10 Bimodality measured by Ashman’s D for the traditional Philadelphia system against bimodality of innovative nasal system for White mainstream speakers, African Americans, Hispanics, and graduates of three Philadelphia high schools 267 13.11 Comparison of Philadelphia vowel systems of Jerome L. and Burt C. 269 13.12 Short– a in the vowel system of Jackie C. 271 13.13 AAVE variants of phonological variables for Black speakers by degree of inter-ethnic contact 274 13.14 AAVE variants of grammatical variables for Black speakers by degree of inter-ethnic contact 274 13.15 Bimodality of /aeh/ and /ae/ for twenty African American speakers 275 14.1 Schematic representation of the different realizations of boat 287 14.2 Normalized means for bought realizations, by speaker 290 14.3 Normalized means for boat realizations per speaker 291 14.4 DD’s realizations of boat 292 14.5 Linguistic co-occurrence in DD’s excerpts 293 16.1 One-handed versus two-handed signs: comparison of results for Southern Black ASL, Louisiana Black ASL, Northern Black ASL, and White ASL 16.2 ASL sign, TEACHER, in citation and lowered form 322 16.3 Size of the signing space: grammatical category by race 325 16.4 Size of the signing space by race 326 16.5 Average proportion of time for each unit in the cartoon narratives 327 16.6 Average proportion of time for each unit in the free narratives 327 16.7a TRIPPING, forehead with movement out 330 16.7b TRIPPING, forehead, short repeated movement, no movement out 331 16.8 WHASSUP? 331 16.9 GIRL PLEASE 332 16.10a MY BAD (male) 333 16.10b MY BAD (female) 333 21.1 Consonant clusters by syllable type and cluster type 405 21.2 Following environments affecting consonant cluster simplification 405 21.3 Environments affecting the absence of /r/ 406 21.4 Environments for glide weakening of /ai/ 411 xiv list of Figures 22.1 Narrowband spectrogram and pitch track of an utterance showing a high density of high tones distinct from lower tones in between 427 22.2 Narrowband spectrogram and pitch track of another utterance showing a high density of high tones 427 22.3 Narrowband spectrogram and pitch track of an utterance showing a low tone on the final stressed syllable ( days ) 428 22.4 Narrowband spectrogram and pitch track of an utterance showing a low tone on a non-final syllable with primary stress (in started ) 428 22.5 Narrowband spectrogram and pitch track of an utterance showing the stressed syllable of hospital with and without a high pitch accent 429 22.6 Narrowband spectrogram and pitch track of an utterance showing stressed go with a relatively low tone 429 22.7 Narrowband spectrogram and pitch track of an utterance showing stressed go with a high tone 430 23.1 MLU values of AAE-speaking children across age (18 to 51 months) 444 24.1 MAE–AAE continuum 455 24.2 DDM scores (features per utterance) for thirty-two speakers at six time points 459 24.3a Number of speakers whose optimal AAE usage occurred at each time point 459 24.3b Number of speakers whose minimal AAE usage occurred at each time point 460 24.4 Linear Regression of DDM scores (features per utterance) against number of feature types 461 24.5 Factor weights across age/grade for copula absence, –ing fronting, and third-person singular –s absence 462 24.6 Invariant be raw use by age/grade 462 24.7 Percentage of vowel shift difference (for means of five vowel classes: BEET, BAT, BUT, BOT, and BOAT) from Grade Ten for ten speakers 464 24.8 Individual trajectories of style shifting for Grades One to Two, Grade Six, and Grade Eight, by difference scores 465 24.9 Median, mean, standard deviation, percentile, and range for difference scores at three time points 466 24.10 Mean child DDM (features per utterance) plotted against the mean mother’s DDM at six time points, significant differences indicated 467 24.11 Intra-class correlation coefficients for girls and boys at Grades Six, Eight, and Ten 468 list of Figures xv 26.1 Possible narrative performances from African American children 506 33.1 Fourth-grade NAEP reading scores, by race, 1992–2011 618 33.2 Absence of four morphological elements in the speech of African American and White struggling readers in low-income Philadelphia schools 621 33.3 Conditioning factors for absence of verbal {s} in the spontaneous speech of fifty-eight African American struggling readers, Philadelphia 622 33.4 Percentage of realization in speech and correct identifications of meanings of inflections by African American second graders in New York City, before and after training 623 33.5 Correlations of influence of grammatical form on African American second graders with inhibition of scores on WJ-R Applied Math problems 624 33.6 Absence of element in speech compared to clear error rates in reading for four linguistic variables for White and Black struggling readers in Philadelphia 626 33.7 Number of potential errors, by race, for four morphosyntactic features for struggling readers in Philadelphia in pre-test diagnostic reading, Ray and His Bad Cat 627 33.8 Frequency of following error for clear errors, potential errors, and correct readings for four AAVE features in the pre-training reading text, Ray and His Bad Cat 629 33.9 Error rates for twenty phonemic/graphemic variables in reading the diagnostic, Ray and His Bad Cat , before and after the Reading Road program for 124 African American and 103 White students in Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Southern California, 2001–2003 630 33.10 Pre- and post-test clear error rates in words including five features of AAVE in the Reading Road program in Philadelphia, 2001–2003 631 33.11 Pre- and post-test percentile scores on Woodcock-Johnson III Word ID, Word Attack, and Passage Comprehension in Philadelphia, 2001–2003 631 34.1 Estimated effect of linguistic features on student scores 645 A.1 Plot of z ij l [ ] ’s against z ij l [ ] ’s 655 A.2 Plot of β against question average correct answers 655 List of Tables 2.1 Types of evidence relevant to the Creole Origins Hypothesis 36 2.2 Decreolization model for Caribbean English Creole copula systems 44 2.3 Frequency of copula absence by following environment in creoles, AAVE, and various studies of the acquisition of English by speakers of other languages 46 5.1 State of origin for African American immigrants to Liberia, divided into Sinoe and non-Sinoe, 1820–1891 111 5.2 Overt marking of irregular nouns 118 5.3 Overt marking of regular nouns 119 9.1 Historical contexts for the development of AAVE in the United States 182 9.2 Recessive/obsolete phonological and grammatical features in rural AAVE 184 9.3 Continuous phonological and grammatical features in rural AAVE 189 9.4 Innovative phonological and grammatical features in rural AAVE 193 10.1 1990 racial demographics of Clarksdale, Jonestown, and Coahoma County 203 10.2 1990 racial demographics of other rural towns outside of Coahoma County 207 10.3 Probability analysis for subject of sentence 209 10.4 Preceding grammatical environment of Creoles, AAVE, and diaspora AAE 210 10.5 Education and township results of copula absence and r-lessness 212 11.1 Atlas data from Atlanta: three 220 11.2 Atlas data from Atlanta: six 221 11.3 Atlas data from Atlanta: eight 221 11.4 Atlas data from Atlanta: ten 222 11.5 Atlas data from Atlanta: half 222 11.6 Atlas data from Atlanta: two 223 11.7 Atlas data from Atlanta: good 223 xviii list of Tables 11.8 Atlas data from Atlanta: sofa 224 11.9 Atlas data from Atlanta: one 224 11.10 Speakers in the Atlanta Survey 227 13.1 Percent tensing of short– a for thirty African Americans in West Philadelphia 263 13.2 Mixed models regression analysis of bimodality (/æh/ versus /æ/) for PNC 267 13.3 Indices of dominance for five ethnic groups in Philadelphia from 1850 to 1970 272 14.1 Major features examined in studies of New York City AAL 282 14.2 Effect of ethnicity on retention of constricted postvocalic /r/ 289 15.1 Contrast between Rita and Esther’s use of canonical AAVE features 301 15.2 Varbrul probabilities, by style, for five of Baugh’s (1979) AAVE variables 302 15.3 Significant contrasts between Foxy’s interviews III and IV (1990, 1991) 305 15.4 Tinky and Foxy’s teenager versus adult use of vernacular features 305 15.5 Zero copula and consonant cluster reduction in Oakland AAVE in 1999, compared with Detroit AAVE thirty years earlier 307 15.6 Percentage Ø is/are and third person singular – s by four Black Sunnyside teens according to familiarity and race of their interlocutors 307 15.7 AAVE feature use by Black Sunnysidaz, by interlocutor characteristics 308 16.1 Black and White Deaf schools: founding and desegregation 317 16.2 Participant characteristics 319 16.3 Two-handed versus one-handed signs 321 16.4 Location: linguistic constraints 323 16.5 Location: social constraints 324 16.6 Size of the signing space: distribution of variants by race 325 16.7 Mouthing by grammatical class/function, race, age, and gender 329 19.1 TMA systems in Nigerian Pidgin, Gullah, and AAL 375 19.2 Type I predicates 377 19.3 Type II predicates 379 19.4 Type III predicates 379 19.5 Type IV predicates 379 19.6 Auxiliaries 381 20.1 Prosodic and phonological factors contributing to the occurrence of contracted and zero is in Early African American English 393 list of Tables xix 20.2 Factors contributing to the occurrence of verbal –s in three varieties of Early African American English, by grammatical person 396 21.1 The effects of ethnicity on some features of Texas English 415 22.1 Percentages of subjects showing forestressing for nine words in LAGS 421 24.1 Most frequent AAE features out of all features in the DDM 460 25.1 Yes/no questions in adult AAE 479 25.2 Wh– questions in adult AAE 480 25.3 Yes/no questions for AAE 3– to 5–year–olds 480 25.4 Wh– questions for AAE 3– to 5–year–olds 481 25.5 Example elicitations 481 25.6 Mean proportion scores and standard deviations of AAE question type produced in elicitation tasks 481 25.7 Frequency of question types in elicited AAE questions out of total number where they are licensed in adult AAE 482 26.1 Elements of High Point Analysis 493 27.1 Psycholinguistic profiles of typically developing children, by dialect 515 27.2 Rates of nonmainstream English structures, by dialect 519 27.3 Proportion of overtly marked forms of BE, by dialect 520 31.1 Salient linguistic rules of AAL 591 31.2 Instructional sequence 595 31.3 Contrastive analysis examples 596 33.1 Major features differentiating AAVE from other varieties 620 33.2 Woodcock–Johnson III WA percentile scores, by race, after forty hours of RRP instruction, 2001–2003 628 34.1 The six morphosyntactic features analyzed 642 34.2 Test score and feature effect correlations 643 34.3 Feature effects averaged across students 644 34.4 Feature effects averaged across students (AAE production included in model) 648 34.5 Test score and feature effect correlations (AAE production included in model) 648 39.1 Some phonological features of AAL 729 39.2 Some grammatical features of AAL 729 39.3 Major narrative topics of African American women comedians 736 39.4 Frequency of AAWL discourse features in comedy narratives 736